Travel with Manfred

Travelogues from around the world

TERMS AND CONDITIONS FOR COPYING, DISTRIBUTION AND MODIFICATION

Everyone is permitted to copy and distribute verbatim copies of this document without a fee, provided that the person conspicuously and appropriately publishes on each copy the appropriate copyright notice and these terms and conditions for copying, distribution, and modifications. Changing this document or charging a fee for distribution or using this document for a financial profit is not allowed. Including this document in a publication that is for sale is not permitted.

This document solely expresses the author's current opinions. It in no way expresses the opinion of any other legal entity. This document does not claim to be correct, complete, or factual. Reading it is at your own risk.

Copyright © 2002 by Manfred P.. All rights reserved.

Mar 2 - Apr 9, 2002

Land of Volcanoes

Living with the Mayas

by

Manfred P.

Keywords: Guatemala, Mexico, Honduras, Antigua, Lago Atitlan, Todos Santos, Tikal, Copan, San Cristobal de las Casas, Palenque, Villahermosa, tourist, travel trip report, travel log, travelogue.

Anticipation

Planning started months before the actual trip. I had five weeks to spend while my girlfriend only had 2 weeks of vacation time. I mapped out a day-by-day plan to be able to determine the best meeting place in Guatemala and to leave the best sights for when we are traveling jointly. Having five weeks my planned trip lead from Guatemala City north into the mountains, further north into the Mexican jungle, cutting across Mexico to Yucatan, following the entire coastline of the Yucatan peninsula, heading south into Belize, crossing the jungle into Guatemala, and then finally south into Honduras before closing the loop in Guatemala City. According to this plan I would cover thousands of kilometers by bus during these five weeks. In the second half of my vacation on a specific day at a specific hour I was supposed to meet up with my girlfriend in a restaurant in the town called Flores. With this travel route on a piece of paper in my pocket I got on the plane.

Arrival

Fuentes Georginas

San Tomas Volcano

On the way down we lost our way in the rain forest. We knew that the trail was further to the left. So we had to cut across the rain forest to meet up again with in the trail. Working our way through the rain forest was cumbersome. On top of that I cut myself twice in the arm with sharp leaves. In about fifteen minutes we were back on track again. While following a ridge we had a clear view on both sides. I was sad to see so many forest fires. Small columns of smoke were rising from the rainforest in various locations. These small forest fires were something I had to get used to. I should see them throughout my stay in Guatemala whenever I was close to the forest. It was still early in the day so we decided to take a detour. Instead of walking back the same route on the shortest path we visited a nearby village. From there we hiked back to the starting point at Fuentes Georginas. At 3:00 p.m. we arrived giving me lots of time to soak in the hot spa as the day before.

In the late afternoon I hitch hiked to the nearest village and from there took the bus to Quetzaltenango. Reaching the hotel I more or less collapsed. I was absolutely exhausted. I was jet lagged, with a cold that I brought from Spain, two nights with little sleep and today I emptied my energy reserves by speed hiking up and down the volcano. I collapsed into bed and instantly fell asleep. When I opened my eyes in what appeared to be only a moment later, the sun was already high on the horizon and shining into my hotel window.

Todos Santos

Having just walked a few yards the coordinator told me that there is a small village nearby where they are looking for an English teacher. This sentence should change the course of my vacation. My response was, "Tell me more". "There is not much more to say. They are looking for someone to teach their children English. And you will be living in their village." "How long would I have to stay?" "I don’t know. But if you are seriously interested we should talk to them now since we are so close to their village." In five minutes we reached the village. The men were all out in the fields working but we spoke to a teenager who informed us that they are always looking for an English teacher and that it had been already a month since there was somebody at their village to teach the kids. I asked, "How does it work?" The youngster explained, "We provide you with a room and you can eat with a local family." "But how many classes of English must I give per day?" "As you like, one or two per day." "And how many days must I stay?" "As many as you like." "And when should I start?" "Whenever you like. You can start today if you like." "OK. I will start today and I will stay for 3 days. I have to go back to Todos Santos to get my stuff but I will be back at midday."

The coordinator and I left to catch up with the rest of the group. Halfway down to Todos Santos we met up with them just as they got ready to start the breakfast. We sat down on a big rock to enjoy the coffee, the tea, bread and bananas. It was a lovely spot. The morning sun was above the mountains ridge and gently warmed our bones. The hot coffee felt good in the stomach. Most travelers in this group are spending three months or more in Guatemala. So it was not surprising that for several it was already their second visit to Todos Santos during their vacation. The conversation was primarily on where people have been and where people are going to.

Having reached the village of Todos Santos I grabbed my backpack, got on the bus, and headed back to the village where I was supposed to teach English.

La Ventoza - Living With the Mayans

A Basic Life - Today Like 500 Years Ago

Daily Routine

Saturday and Sunday are identical. But instead of going to school the kids just work a few hours more in the fields. On Sundays part of the village goes to church.

Weather and Shows of Nature

The village La Ventoza is located on a pass, mountain ridges to the northeast and southwest, valleys to the northwest and southeast. Given these conditions the clouds have to pass the village on their daily northwest-to-southeast journey. Small and large pieces of clouds sweep through the village. These chunks of clouds have irregular forms. They look like they’re torn off in anger. They are wildly fringed. In seconds they can swallow up a house. And they’re so close; this is why they’re so real. Whatever is in their way disappears just to reappear seconds later. It is an impressive daily show. Somehow it is mystical. It is magical and supernatural. I wonder if it is just nature playing with us or if there is a spirit in the clouds making them move the way they move. Besides Earth, Water, and Fire, Air is one of the four gods of the Indians. Maybe it is god Air who is within the clouds and guides them on their graceful journey crossing the pass in front of my eyes every afternoon.

In the late that afternoon it gets cold and after 6:00 p.m. the only place where you want to be is close to the fireplace.

At night the stars come out. The sky is covered with them. If you only know the sky over your average city this is a special treat. There is no air pollution, there is no light pollution and you are at 3,500m (11,500ft). There are more stars than you have ever seen and they sparkle brighter than you are used to. Throw in a few shooting stars and you have another natural show that starts every day at 7:00 p.m. I should add though that I never star gazed for more than five minutes due to the freezing temperatures.

It is really dark at night. It gets pitch black. There are no street lights to add some visibility. This darkness creates a second danger at night, second beside the dogs. I had to continuously watch my head as I was too tall for their architecture. The roofs reach down to 1m 50cm (5ft), the doors are about the same height and the clotheslines, sometimes made of a metal wire, hang even lower. I had to be careful not to hit my head on any of these obstacles at night when walking "home" or to the outhouse.

One night the winds were howling and blowing so strong that the metal roof of my little quarter was rattling loudly. Dust and other particles started to fall down from the roof onto my bed. I thought that the roof is going to collapse any moment now. For protection I placed my hands over my head and slipped completely under my 5 blankets. My fear never came true; the roof withstood the storm and it was still in its place when I woke up the next morning.

Education

Farming

These dogs are no laughing matter. On several occasions I had a standoff with a dog. It is quite scary to be at 5 yards with a barking, snarling dog that shows you its teeth. Even worse when you have a standoff with a dog, other dogs are attracted by the barking and come to assist the first dog. My heart rate sky rocketed and I threw rocks as them as soon as possible. I have been bitten once in Peru by a potentially rabies-carrying dog. This experience has been painful enough to not forget it. I have learned my lesson and took precautions wherever possible. That meant above all to avoid any places where there are dogs or to make a big circle around a dog once the dog is seen in the distance. I heard that some tourist was less fortunate and was bitten by a dog in Todos Santos while I was in La Ventoza.

Being farmers the work of the locals primarily consisted in planting corn or potatoes, watering them and shepherding their sheep. Most kids had their own sheep to take care of. Interestingly enough each kid knew how many sheep it had but not all kids knew how many brothers they had. As shepherds they usually left early in the morning, walked into the mountains and returned in time for dinner. The women spent all morning in the kitchen cooking or preparing food. Every afternoon from 2 to 4 p.m. they spent weaving in front of their houses and at 4 p.m. they returned back to the kitchen. The women hardly ever leave their tiny village. Most of the women have never been farther away then a two hour bus ride. Most men have been to the capital of Guatemala once or twice in their life. Nobody has ever been outside of their country.

Forests

A Happy, Satisfied Life with a Positive Attitude

The Shower Substitute - The Steam Bath

Food

The meal is complimented with a choice of 3 beverages. All 3 beverages are hot, something you get to enjoy in this climate. Coffee is the primary beverage. It is brewed in a big pot. The pot is in many cases an old gigantic can without a lid. A handful of ground coffee is thrown directly into the boiling water. Then two handfuls of sugar are added. At last a bit of cinnamon is thrown in. The whole brew is now stirred with a wooden stick. There is no option of sugar or no sugar. It is always cooked and drunk with sugar. Similarly since there is no milk there’s also no option. It’s black, weak and sweet. The second drink is called "mosh". It consists of water, oat, and sugar. Everything is mixed and then boiled. It is a very nourishing drink. Two glasses of it and your stomach is halfway full. "Atol" is the third drink. It is similar to mosh, but instead of oat corn is used. On a special holiday they might even add at touch of milk to mosh and atol to make them particularly good.

Everything is eaten hot. Given the freezing temperatures it is easy to understand why. Once I gave a banana to a girl as a gift. She placed the banana in its peel on the wooden fire to heat it up. The inside was steaming when she peeled it.

It is not only important what you eat but also how much you eat. Within a few days I got used to eat only a moderate amount. Living with the Mayans I learned to eat only to satisfy the hunger. Here, once you no longer feel hungry you stop eating. While in our countries first we eat to kill the appetite and then we eat some more just for the pleasure of eating. When we can’t continue anymore we still have another plate of dessert. With the Mayans I learned to eat only half of what I used to eat and I never felt hungry.

It is also interesting to talk about where you eat. Of course you sit close to the fire. There is no table to eat. You just sit on a chair close to the fireplace and you hold your plate in one hand. The Mayans also only use spoons. It took a bit to get used to eating without fork and knife. When you get a piece of chicken for example you have to use your hands. During dinner it is so dark that you can not see the corners of the room. You just see the people sitting around the fireplace, each one with a plate in their hands, and their faces alive with the moving shine of the fire. Any leftover of food is simply thrown onto the floor. So, chicken bones or corn end up on the dirt floor. Their animals wonder in and out of the houses freely. While you are eating, dogs, cats, turkeys, chicken and so forth pass by and clean any leftovers off the floor. During a single meal the chicken went for the tortilla dough, the cat for the egg and the ducks picked up the corn. It is an efficient system and nothing gets wasted. The only animals that are bothering are the flies. Dozens or even hundreds of flies circle around the pots in the kitchen. If the food is not covered or stored properly, the flies will get to it. And they are a real appetite killer.

Work within and for the Community

Besides teacher and electrician I also worked as woodworker, designer and painter. Woodworking skills came in handy turning a wooden board I found in the woods into a trivial bookshelf that I hung from the wall in the school room. I acted as designer and painter in context of the small, local village church. There was no priest, so on Sundays one of the village elders would read from the Bible and the whole church congregation would sing cheerfully. The mass lasted more than an hour and most of it was spent singing. Since the mass was in Mam I could not understand anything. The church was just a bigger house with four plain walls on the outside and a metal tin roof. On the inside the church was decorated with party and carnival decoration. Flowers and bells made of aluminum foil were hanging off the ceiling. In addition blue cloth was used to decorate the ceiling and in the front several pots of artificial flowers separated the podium from the rest of the church. The podium itself was decorated with a Santa Claus and jingle bells table cloth. Instead of benches plastic seats were used. The women and young children set on the left hand side nicely separated from the male teenagers and men on the right. Church was clearly more a female issue than a male issue as the women usually outnumbered the men 3:1.

For a long time already they wanted to paint a title on the front wall of the church. But they did not know how. It was no trivial task. Somebody had to measure the length of the wall, count the number of letters per line, take into account that some letters like "m" are wider than letters like "i", compute the maximum height and width for all letters such that they would nicely fit into the given space, and so forth. I came up with the font and then made full sized paper templates of all necessary letters. Instead of selecting the colors themselves they preferred relying on me to make the choice. As official color advisor I selected white for the letters to form a good contrast with the green paint of the church walls, and red for the shadow of the letters where red would be a good contrast to both the white and the green. Since there were no tools like spirit level available I had to improvise. With two nails and a long thread with a rock on each side I was able to draw long straight lines with a piece of chalk from the school. Then I used the letter templates to outline the letters with chalk. The actual painting was then easy. The full inscription in two lines reads: "Templo Evangelico Mam C.A., Dios es Amor, 1a John 3.7." (Evangelical Church of the Mam, Central America, God is Love, John 3.7). Once the inscription was dry, we added the picture of an open bible showing the words "Dios ama el mundo" ("God loves the world") on top of the inscription. I suggested to them to place a quetzal, the Guatemalan national bird, to the left and right of the bible. This proposal was too avant-garde and rejected by the villagers. We made sure that the letters and the image are big enough so that everything can be read easily from the main road that runs through the village. If you ever take the bus from Huehuetenango to Todos Santos watch out for the lettering on the church on the right hand side. It is - to the largest degree - the proud work of my girlfriend and me. Even better then admiring the church facade from the bus is to get off the bus and say hello to the people of La Ventoza.

With the color that was left over from painting the church I painted an image of the world with its 5 continents as a mural. It covers one entire wall of their school room now.

Introducing a Computer to the Kids

She brought the promised laptop computer and donated it to the children. Several days before I already taught the kids the most basic facts about computers: what they are, how they work, and what they can be used for. The first classes we used to teach them how to turn the computer on and how to shut down the computer. Even a few adults got interested enough to stop by the class to see a computer for their first time. The next classes we used to teach them the calculator and a few basic games such as solitary. The kids haven’t even used a calculator before in their life. In the final classes we taught them a simple text editor for kids, where they coudl write and add images.

Abstract thinking is difficult for them. Computers are about the most abstract tools there are. Learning computers is a tough challenge for them. While my girlfriend is not convinced that introducing a computer to them is one of the best ideas, I believe that any education is positive even if the education is of little practical value such as computers in their case. At the very least they have lost the fear of something unknown.

From La Ventoza to La Torre

And if you are up for it you can hike from here down to Todos Santos following the ridge northwestwards and then descending into the valley where Todos Santos is located. This is a hike of about 3 or 4 hours.

From La Ventoza to the Southwestern Hills

Following the mountain ridge northwestward is interesting. You can wander from hilltop to hilltop, always with great views into the valleys and after a short time the village of Todos Santos will appear. As you have already realized, all trails here lead in one way or another to Todos Santos.

From La Ventoza to Todos Santos

More on Todos Santos

Tourists come here for two reasons: Either to learn Spanish or to see Mayans in their traditional clothing. Three language schools are based in Todos Santos. These language schools are surprisingly well integrated with the locals. The teachers are locals and daily events bring tourists and locals closer together. These events include visits to the local reforestation site, visit and chat with the local herb "witch" who cures the headaches and colds of the tourists with her herbs and teas. Other activities include seminars on local farming and weaving lessons for interested tourists.

Todos Santos is famous all over Guatemala for its traditional clothing. The young and old people alike are proud to wear their traditional clothing. Both men and women wear straw hats with a blue, wide leather band with metal inlays and red ribbons. The guys wear red pants with thin blue stripes and colorful shirts again in stripes, mostly in the color tones of white, red, blue. The women wear blue skirts and weaved blouses with colorful patterns. The nice thing is that everyone is dressed like this, not just the occasional person.

Twice a week is market day. Everyone streams to town early in the morning to do business. Some come to town to get drunk. Todos Santos has only a few streets. On the main road are at couple of bars. On market days the bars are full and people dance to traditional live music. Apparently some men have a problem with alcohol. I heard stories of wild bar fights. I was also told that the tiny village of Todos Santos has a prison cell and that it is constantly filled with drunken people. On one occasion a drunk threw a beer bottle against a cop. Not a smart thing to do in any country. It is needless to say that he ended up in the prison cell. But for the most part is a peaceful tranquil village.

The market is mainly interesting for the people, not for the products sold. It is a normal market with the typical products on sale: tomatoes, onion, garlic, bananas, mango, pineapple, ice cream, fried chicken, French fries, fried pork skin, and lots of wool in hundreds of colors covering the spectrum of the whole rainbow. The locals use it to weave skirts, blankets, blouses and more.

I visited Todos Santos several times during my stay in La Ventoza. Normally I walked downhill and on the way back uphill I took the bus. In Todos Santos an obligatory stop was at the "Linguistic Institute," the more impressive name for one of the Spanish schools. I had formed a good relation with the various coordinators and I had also convinced them to put a little sign on their wall advertising the opportunity of teaching English at La Ventoza. An ad, so to speak, for my cause. Being in town I used the opportunity to relax in the hammock on the roof terrace of the language institute where there is a nice view, to do a little shopping and to makes phone calls, more precisely to try to make phone calls because it hardly ever worked. The ordeal of phoning is worth its own chapter.

Even if you don’t make it to Todos Santos, in many tourist places around the country you will find post cards of Todos Santos showing the local population in their traditional clothing.

Phones in Todos Santos and La Ventoza

Keep in mind though that phoning is only that difficult in the mountain regions. In all other places of the country phoning is as easy as finding a telephone booth.

Atitlán Lake

Atitlan Lake - Gringotenango

Gringotenango is living exclusively off tourism. There are dozens of restaurants to choose from, hotels are so high in numbers that the competition is fierce and the prices extremely low. Add several banks and line the two main roads with stalls and shops selling tourist goods from clothing, blankets, leather goods to gifts and you get Gringotenango. But Gringotenango is not as bad as some bad-mouth it. It also has a lovely church and a small everyday market selling vegetables and fruit. For a reason that I cannot even explain myself the church of Gringotenango is my favorite church of all of Guatemala. It is small, old and well restored. The architecture is of Spanish influence and being Easter it was nicely decorated on the inside as well as on the outside. On the cobblestone square in front of the church was a wooden gate, constructed to hang local vegetables such as pumpkins as well as fruit such as pineapples and bananas. I do not know this symbolism but I suspect that this is to give thanks to god for a good harvest. Inside the church was a life-sized reconstruction of a scene of Jesus’ crucifixion and resurrection. The floor was decorated with painted sand and large amounts of flowers and small banana trees were used to create the rich decoration.

Atitlan Lake - San Marcos

The villages are more traditional but certainly have had significant influence by tourism. And this is just the beginning. More and more they’re preparing for the next wave of tourism. San Marcos had no hotel ten years ago and today it has about five; each one run by an expatriate. You want to talk French or Italian? This is a good place to brush up on your international language skills. Besides five hotels, a church and a large offering of meditation, yoga and self-discovery courses there is little to see or do. The local population is pushed into the background and not very visible. It has a foreign flair primarily because you will find signs like "Do not throw away trash. Tidy = more tourism = more money", "Zen Classes", and "Find your Inner Self, sessions by appointment". Construction is ongoing to improve the infrastructure. As we were there they were paving the road to the main square. There is actually only one road; the rest are pedestrian trails that connect the various houses and run down to the lake shore.

The vegetation is wild and in some places orange trees and coffee is planted. The best time of the day is at 6:00 a.m. The lake is calm. The air is fresh. Standing on the pier you can watch the sun rise and put its first beams on the volcanoes surrounding you. The wind gently moves the reeds on the shore. Local fishermen can be seen in the distance with their one-person wooden canoes. You can see the nearby steep shoreline. Corn is planted in even the steepest areas, and without terraces like the Incas. It is a tranquil environment. The primary source of noise is the birds in the trees. It is cool and the air crisp with excellent visibility. There is no haze and there are no clouds to hinder your eyes to wander into the distance. It was a special place for the Mayans for centuries. It is a special place today.

In the morning the volcanoes are in their full splendor. In the afternoon clouds move in and hide the peaks behind their white embrace. This is also when the wind kicks up a notch and puts tiny waves on the surface of the lake. The boat rides can become choppy and bumpy with the occasional splash of water in your face.

Atitlan Lake - San Pedro to San Marcos

The road continues and leads on to Santa Clara and San Pablo. The scenery was pretty constant. To the left of the road were coffee plantations and to the right the villas of the rich or simply a coastal stretch with reeds. The road went uphill and downhill. 2 or 3 hours must have passed hiking before we reached our base, San Marcos. The hike was sufficient to build up a large appetite.

Sololá

Antigua

Being of such small size makes Antigua attractive to tourists who immediately feel comfortable with the town and its orientation. Like Atitlan Lake there are also three volcanoes surrounding this location. Agua (Water), Fuego (Fire) and Acatenango. All three can be seen from most of the places within the town. Fuego, as the name properly indicates, is still active and at night tiny streams of red lava can be seen flowing from the peak. The most dominant volcano however is Agua which is located to the south. It is the closest to the city and therefore the most capturing. It is also of the perfect cone shape, fully symmetrical. Tours to visit these volcanoes are offered in every agency.

All churches with a few exceptions still lay in ruins. Their roofs crumbled under the earthquakes of the previous centuries and there was never any money to rebuild them. As you wander through the streets you will see collapsed church walls and piles of rubble. The Spanish mansions have mostly been reconstructed and restored to their former splendor. They house museums, art shops, restaurants or are the home of wealthy citizens.

There are several markets in Antigua. Some are dedicated to handicrafts, above all weaved goods and textiles. The traditional market is large and has both an outdoors and an indoors section. The people from Antigua are called "Green Bellies" because the rumor says that they are eating so many avocados. At the market it becomes clear that this is the region of avocado growing. Avocados everywhere and to prices of 8 for $1. We enjoyed self-made avocado sandwiches every day. For hot meals there is a good selection of restaurant stalls in the center of the market. Here you can build your own meal. You look into all pans and pots and then tell the cook, "Give me a bit of rice, add some sauce from that skillet but without any pieces of meat, and throw in a little bit of these vegetables on the side. In addition give me some soup from that pot." The tortillas don’t have to be mentioned.

Antigua is also a shopping paradise. Tourist stores everywhere. Sometimes you get the feeling that every other building is a souvenir shop. The goods are nearly identical in all of them but differently presented. There is also a large handicraft market with identical offering. Table cloths with cloth napkins are amongst the best sellers. Weaved bags, weaved pillow covers, weaved cloth wallets extend the offers. Besides weaving, leather goods such as belts and bags are displayed everywhere. The stores range from fancy and stylish to modest and simple. But you do not need a store to sell the goods. The locals wander the streets and sell the same goods from a large basket. If the prophet doesn’t come to the mountain the mountain comes to the prophet.

We also found a curious secondhand store in the center of Antigua. Here used traditional Guatemalan clothing is sold to tourists at full prices, i.e. between $10 and $50. Funny. I always thought that rich countries donate use clothing to Guatemala and not the other way around. Here hand weaved clothing that was made in the small villages by the Mayans, then used by these Mayans until torn have been collected. Instead of throwing them in the trash as they have done before they have discovered that these pieces of clothing can be recycled and turned into money. For tourists the value lies in the fact that these are all hand weaved and that they are "real", i.e. not made for tourist consumption but once worn by locals. This secondhand store is like a treasure chest. We spent quite some time browsing. It was certainly more interesting than the traditional tourist stores.

Three or four blocks away is the textile museum with traditional clothing on exhibit. Costumes from the various regions and villages of all Guatemala have been collected here and presented in a former Spanish mansion with inner courtyard and fountain. The clothes found here were a perfect fit for the secondhand store or vice versa, the clothing from the secondhand store is a perfect fit for this textile museum.

We did most of our shopping in Antigua and since the offering was so repetitive I was tired of seeing weaved goods like table cloths, napkins and scarves when we left town.

Flores

Flores is tiny and can’t grow in dimensions as it is located on a small island and every square meter of the 200m by 200m island is covered already. Here in the jungle it is hot and even at night in a thin shirt you are close to sweating. Flores connects via a bridge to its sister town Santa Elena. Somebody claims that Flores is the most beautiful small island in the world. But whoever said that has seen little of this world. It’s an okay place; the lake does have its charm, especially at sunrise or sunset. Small one-person boats are still used by fishermen, but jet skis are occasionally destroying the scene with there noise and air pollution. Progress has its price tag.

It is certainly not a quiet, small, off-the-shelf village. It has an important night scene that ranges from bars to discos, powered by the tourist dollar of course. I have seen more mobile phones here than in any other place. The people also have given up wearing traditional clothing, western style is in. Flores also has an airport, so you do not have to sit 9 hours or more in the bus like us, crossing the jungle. You can fly in in the morning and by sunset you already have returned to wherever you came from. I prefer the bus, given that I have time. There are a lot more things to see: you can study the faces of the passengers, follow the changes in the landscape, get a feeling for the distances or just mentally digest the last things seen and prepare the next day of sight seeing.

Tikal

As the bus stops I can’t wait to get out and start the exploration. To start the day we decide on a short 20-minute jungle walk to one of the remote temples. For security I ask one of the machinegun-armed tourist police officers if he can provide us with an escort. He said that the park has been made safe in the last years and that for three years there wasn’t any major incident of crime in the park. I am not sure. Is he telling the truth or is he making this up just so that he doesn’t have to move his lazy behind? With or without escort we decide to go. Not a single soul to see. We reach the temple and can’t quite figure out if this is the temple we see on our map. The reality, specifically the trails don’t quite match the ones in the map. As we circle the temple again and try to figure out where we are loud grunts echo through the jungle. The roars are so loud and sudden that my girlfriend is frightened. I have to laugh secretly. Before even seeing them I knew what they were. Howler monkeys. Given the volume they must be really close. More or less over our heads we discovered the group. They continued to grunt and bellow as we watched them from below. From time to time they jumped from one branch to another in the treetops but with all the leaves it was difficult to track them.

We walked another half hour before finally confirming our location on the map and before - for the first time - crossing with another tourist. We decided to work ourselves from the outside in, to sort of savor the best ruins and pyramids at the end. Tikal is a large complex with hundreds of ruins. While Tikal was settled several centuries BC, its first cultural peak was around 500 AD and its second around 700 AD. One of the kings or rulers was Ah Cacau, Lord Chocolate. Now that’s a pretty good name. Easy to remember but also significant. The Mayas had one thing that nobody else had and that they could use for trading. Gold and jewels were not unique and other cultures had them as well. But only the Mayans had cacao and from it they created a chocolate drink. Cacao was valued in gold and obviously only the rulers could afford to drink it. It would give them spiritual, physical and political powers and strength it was thought. Think of that empowerment and its price weighed in gold the next time you reach for the chocolate bar. Surprisingly there is no major chocolate production or chocolate "culture" today in Guatemala. You will have a hard time finding any special chocolate in a store and there is no chocolate to be found anywhere on a market. Hersheys does have cacao plantations but today the famous chocolate regions are more to be found in Mexico, in the area of the state of Tabasco where the Mayans also ruled.

Tikal is large. More than 1,000 ruined structures are known to be here. "Known to be here" and visible are to different things. Only a small percentage, maybe 5 to at most 10 percent of the ruins have been dug out and partially restored. The rest, some 900 structures, still lies - and will remain to lie for many decades and possibly forever - covered by one meter (yard) or more of soil under ground and invisible.

For me the most impressive part of the ruins was the fact that they were invisible. At one instance the map indicated at pyramid some 30m straight ahead of me. But I saw nothing. There was just a stretch of jungle with trees. I thought the map I used for navigation was wrong showing pyramids where there weren’t any. I walked closer. At 20m I still didn’t see anything. At 10m for the first time I saw some rocks and thought "Mmh, I don’t know maybe that is something." I had to be at 3m to actually realize that the map was right. All the time I was standing in front of the pyramid, it was just not restored. Big structures can disappear completely in the rainforest. The jungle swallows them up. A pyramid or temple might be 30m tall; yet if covered by 1m of soil and above that dense rainforest it appears like one of millions of little hills in the jungle. Before restoration the pyramids are mere pile of rocks, rocks without order, and all of that 1m below the surface of to rain forest. With time I learned that nearly every little hill at Tikal is in reality and unrestored temple. The roots of the trees have torn the layers of rocks apart and have turned walls and stairways into random piles of rocks. Roots are strong enough to lift tons of rocks. Very tall and very steep structures had a better chance of surviving with less change. Apparently it was more difficult there for plants to take root; so these structures are closer to their original form and hence were easier to be discovered.

Amazing is also the quantity of Mayan structures. In Tikal alone are 1,000 structures. In Palenque are also close to 1,000 structures. But there are an estimated 1,000 Mayan sites that researchers and governments know about. 95 percent of the known sites are inaccessible; they are never visited by tourists and have never seen a restoration team. In the few sites that are visited by tourists and where restoration has taken place only some five percent of the structures have been restored. From that we can conclude that in total only five percent of the structures of five percent of the sites are restored. That means that the tiny fraction of 0.25 percent of the total Mayan structures is restored and visible to the tourists. Why not restore more? To start with there is no money. Most of the money for the restoration at the famous and well visited sites comes from U.S. and European universities. It also makes little business sense to open up new sites. Guatemala might have some fifteen accessible sites. Creating one more site will not bring additional tourists to the country and will not bring additional tourist dollars. The market needs and the tourist appetite are satisfied undoubtedly with the handful available excavated sites.

Slowly we worked our way from the outside perimeter towards the central temples. Here in Tikal many temples are restored such that the front side is complete restored while the backside is only restored to the point that the brushwork and the jungle has been cleared. This gives a good idea of how the temple was found. Tikal has everything: Temples, palaces, housing of the rich and stelae. The housing of the poor was all done in wood with thatched roofs. Nothing remains of them.

The majority of the temples are built in a pyramid-like shape. They were designed to be tall, with stairways running to their top. The temples are steep resulting that the steps of the stairways are high. This makes the climbing of the temples a good physical exercise. You got to lift your knees high and given the tropical heat you will work up a sweat before you have even reached the top. The temples also usually only have one or three rooms. These are the rooms on the very top of the pyramid and nobody ever lived there. These rooms were just used for religious ceremonies. In some cases the pyramid sits on top of a king’s grave. There is incredible similarity with the pyramids in Egypt.

The palaces have a different architecture. Clearly they have to be more functional. They are less tall so that there would be a larger surface area on the top. There is usually only a base platform of a few steps. Then there is a maze of rooms. At good-sized palace might have some 50 to 100 rooms. The Mayans did not know how to construct arcs. Hence they were not capable of creating large rooms. The roof was made of heavy rocks. To prevent the rocks from tumbling down killing the royalty, all rooms are very narrow, maybe some three meters wide at best. With the height of more than 4m they are higher than they're wide. The rooms are interconnected with narrow hallways turning the palace into a maze of small chambers and along narrow hallways.

Tikal houses also the first skyscraper. Temple IV at 64m (70 yards) is the highest pre- Columbian building known in the Western Hemisphere. Usually you cannot see one temple from the other as they are separated by the jungle - if only by a few dozen meters. The jungle might be some 30m high and thereby swallows anything of that altitude. When you reach the top of Temple IV you are above the tree tops and have excellent view for many miles. While most of Tikal - even from up there - is hidden behind the greenery, the other temples of more then 30m can be seen. There are only three more that stick out, Temple I, II and V. It is a postcard-perfect shot: 3 unspoiled ruin tops above the never-ending vastness of the lush jungle. Not a single human soul to see either. Not that there are no tourists, it is just that Temple II shows you the back, while everyone is on the front side; Temple I is closed off because it is so steep that several people slipped and tumbled to their death; and Temple V is closed because it is currently being excavated.

For the very last we left the highlight of Tikal, the Central Plaza. It is flanked by two of the best temples, Temple I and II, to the east and west and lined by palaces in the north and south. In the plaza itself are a series of stelae. In all of the plaza and between the immediately attached buildings the rainforest has been cleared and a lawn has been placed. You can overlook the entire square at its full splendor, similar to what it once must have looked like 1,300 years ago under the rulers of the Maya. In the center of the plaza the tourist guides had made a fire and had added incense to it. This increased the spiritual flair of the location. The Mayas certainly possessed great skills and great organization talent. Their belief in the gods must have been strong; otherwise they would not have gone to such extremes spending years and tons of rocks to create such pyramids. And all of this was constructed without the knowledge of the wheel and without the capability of creating arcs.

Chiquimula

Why do I remember the heat? It was really excessively hot. When walking around during daytime I rushed from shade to shade. At arrival at the town when we checked into the hotel and I realized that the hotel had a swimming pool I thought "What a useless, extravagant feature". At that time I had not realized how hot it really is here. I quickly changed my mind and the pool became the main attraction and the thing to look forward to after a day of tourism. It was the first time we had access to a pool and we made good use of it. Why do I remember the mangos? Like Antigua is the center of avocados, Chiquimula is the center of mangos. Mangos grow everywhere. At the market they sell you a bag of 2 kilos (4.5 lbs) for $1. If you are a fanatic mango lover like I, you will feel in heaven. Dinner consisted of five mangos as stomach-filling aperitif followed by a small sandwich. Even better, there were two large mango trees in the garden of the hotel right next to the pool. Each tree was just incredibly full with fruits, 100s of them. The ripe mangos fell off the trees as you swam a few rounds in the pool. You just picked them up, peeled them and enjoyed the freshest and sweetest mango you can image right at the pool side. Mouth watering, isn’t it?

During the last night in Chiquimula a tropical storm started. The thunder exploded so loud that it hurt my ears. The rain was gushing down in such quantities that it was a spectacle. In order not to miss this display of nature we sat down on the hotel balcony. From there we had a good view of the night sky lit up by lightning and of the hotel roof below us beaten by the rain.

Guatemala City

Mexico: Border Crossing at Ciudad Cuauhtemoc

After the border crossing the controls started. First we had two military police controls. Then two more police and immigration controls. In the first 6 hours in Mexico our bus was stopped four times. We had to get out, show the passport and get on again. Like the U.S. tries to keep the southern border to Mexico shut, the Mexicans try to keep their southern border closed to illegal Guatemalans. What the Mexicans are to the Americans the Guatemalans are to the Mexicans. All the major roads are checked to keep the poor neighbors out.

Mexico: San Cristóbal de las Casas

I checked into a backpacker hotel with kitchen facilities for the guests. I did this above all because it was still chilly in the early morning hours and at night and I wanted to have the opportunity to make hot tea whenever I felt like it. Socializing and interaction ranked high in this hotel. During the morning breakfast a discussion got going about the purpose of life. My discussion partners were a very diverse pair of individuals. One person was a 58-year old German, retired, and backpacking around Central America in the same style as any 25-year old one. This proves that age doesn’t matter. The other person was the only Austrian I ever met on my vacation. She was from the same hometown as I and her dream was to permanently move here. She had big plans, plans to live here, in harmony with the native Mayans, to make money by selling photos or writing newspaper articles. She was 20, young, idealistic and overly optimistic. As life has it, I hooked up with the 58-year old and for the week to come, my entire stay in Mexico, we would be travel companions, touring Chiapas jointly.

San Cristobal is at 2,100m (6,500ft), implying that it gets freezing cold as soon as the sun sets. During daytime the sun is pleasant and a T-shirt might be enough. San Cristobal is the central town in its vicinity, and hence this is where the main markets are. There are two markets and both are extensive. The handicraft market offers all the gifts for tourists: small wooden toys, carved wooden masks, weaved material, clothing, hammocks, hand- made jewelry and tourist kitsch. The fruit and vegetable market had everything for a healthy dinner: mangos, pineapples, bananas, peaches, star fruits, tomatoes, onion, salads, to chicken and meats. It took us two hours to stroll through the market to buy the dinner items. This gives you an idea about the size.

I cooked spaghetti in the hotel for dinner and thereafter we headed out again to see the town by night. San Cristobal is a modern city geared toward the backpackers from the 21st century: lots of internet cafes, lots of coffee shops, lots of hand-made jewelry stores, cheap hotels, music bars, money exchange shops, and travel and tour agencies.

Besides the infrastructure the town also offers some charm. Above all it has kept some of its colonial aspects. The roads are partially still cobble stone paved, even though the traffic is high. Several old Spanish mansions have been restored and have been turned into either elegant, tasteful hotels or charming, expensive restaurants. These places are a feast for the eyes. Orientation is easy as the whole street system is a perfect grid, and both on the east and west are a church-topped hill overlooking the whole city. These hills are named Cerro San Cristóbal and Cerro de Guadalupe. Nice views are to be had from their top. There is no lack of churches in the center either. In colonial times lots of money was invested into religious architecture and here most of the churches and convents have survived.

Mexico: Zinacantán

Mexico: San Juan Chamula

There are no benches in this church. The whole center was wide open. Along the walls to the left and right are catholic statues of all sorts of saints and apostles. The tiled floor is covered with fir needles. The fir symbolizes the Mayan tree of life. In front of each statue are dozens of candles. Given that there are more than 40 statues, there are half a thousand candles giving the church a mystic flair. The local families come in and sit down on the floor like preparing for a picnic. They clear a small area of the floor of fir needles and put up 20 to 50 new candles that they brought. Then they lay down offerings such as five eggs, a bottle of liquor and a bottle of Coke. Then they start praying, better said, chanting. For an hour they remain chanting with rhythmic movements of the upper body. Thereafter they open the Coke, spill some on the floor and drink some. They pour some in a glass and pass they glass around and all family members take a sip. The kids snack on some salted crackers. In some cases the oldest family member, usually grandma, silently pulls a live chicken from a bag. She moves the chicken to the left, to the right, forward, plus some other movements. Upon finishing the movements with one hand she holds the chicken, with the other she pulls the head to stretch the chicken’s neck some 25 cm (10 inches). The chicken barely makes a few "gock"s. By now the animal is half dead. It still moves the legs and occasionally a wing. Grandma just holds it quiet. Within 15 minutes the chicken appears to be dead for good. The family makes some crosses in the air and on their bodies. The dead chicken is held to the left, to the right, and a few circles are done with it and then the ceremony or ritual is over. The family usually stays until the candles are fully burned to the ground.

When I was there four families were at it at the same time. One family of 5 women, 2 kids and 1 man had placed 150 candles in front of them.

This is not an every-day church event. Sounds like out of a movie, but it is a daily event. No surprise that the Catholic Church has expelled the whole village from its religion. Their believes are strange: For them, Maria is the mother of the sun. Christ is called Manobel Tobel. Animals and plants, even objects can have an immortal soul. The wax is a meal for the gods. When you burn a candle you feed the gods. People can have multiple souls.

These rituals have made San Juan Chamula a famous and tourist-spoiled town. Big tour buses roll in, kids beg for money and the adults treat you like a dumb tourist, not like a human person.

Mexico: Palenque

Rain clouds were still hanging low the next day as we took the minibus to the archeological site. Palenque is huge. 1,000s of buildings are here with about 500 structures excavated or partially excavated. This makes it most likely the Mayan site with the most excavation anywhere. And excavations are still on-going. One temple had just been restored a couple of years back and Temple XX is in the process of excavation. The amount of buildings accessible to tourists is incredible. The distances too. The restored buildings are spread over an area of dimension 20km by 10km (13 by 6 miles). We spent 6 full hours hiking from ruin to ruin, walking up the steps of the temples and strolling through the empty palaces.

At the beginning, in the morning, I was disappointed about the rainy weather. But I learned that it was actually perfect this way. Every 1 or 2 hours was a brief rain shower. During the rainfall we hid below a temple roof or inside a palace. The rain gave it a more realistic atmosphere. This is the rain forest. It is supposed to rain here every day. That’s why it is a rainforest. Secondly it kept the temperature cool. We hiked a lot, some 20km, and that is a lot more pleasant in cool temperature than under unbearable heat. In short, the rain turned out to be a blessing.

We had the luck to meet an archeologist explaining his work and past achievements to family members. He works for National Geographic in the US and is US citizen. He spent some years here digging out the temple that carries his nickname "Romeo and Juliet". On the inside they found two bodies. A male and a female. He was buried several years before her and was royalty. The walls of the tomb chamber were painted red. His body was lying in the center of the chamber and a rib bone was missing. Her body was kneeling in the corner and she held his rib bone in her hand. The tomb was closed from the inside and they have concluded that several years after the king died and was buried, his grave was opened again and she went in and then closed and sealed the chamber from the inside. It is assumed that she was one of his lovers and she gave her life willingly and had chosen to die in his chamber. A tragic love story, hence the temple nickname "Romeo and Juliet".

Palenque holds more surprises. 5 little streams flow through the area of the ruins. The main stream was even channeled by the Mayans. Further away from the palaces and temples, in the area of the housing complexes the streams form beautiful waterfalls with idyllic pools of turquoise water. If you feel like it you can go for a swim here knowing that centuries ago, the Mayans did the same at the very same spot.

Palenque was "re"-discovered around 1830. But nothing happened for a long time. There was no access, no interest and no money. First interest came in 1940. Photographs were made and plans for revival drawn. In 1945 actual excavation and restoration began. The center of the ancient city is the palace. It has a tower of three levels and the pictures of how the tower was found in 1940 are amazing. The state of disrepair is impressive; especially if you compare the pictures from 1940 with photos from today. The second most famous building is the Temple of the Inscription that is a royal burial site, discovered only in 1993. The Temple of the Inscription is the tallest building in Palenque and features stuccos. The hieroglyphs written in 700 AD explain the story of Palenque. Deep inside the temple, currently closed to tourists, is the grave of the most famous ruler. He wore a death mask of jade and his skeleton was jewel covered. There is also a ventilation tube connecting the chamber with the outside. What similarity with the Egyptian pyramids!

Mexico: Aqua Azul

Mexico: Villahermosa

From Villahermosa I took a bus to La Ventoza. That was a planned 24-hour bus trip in 7 different buses. The trip went without hitch and I even made it faster than planned and already arrived after 20 hours.

Honduras: Copán

Copan is a lot smaller than Tikal or Palenque, maybe only 10 percent of the area of Tikal. There are very few structures in comparison to the other two sites. But Copan can offer something that the others can’t: Stelae and a completely intact underground temple from previous generations. Temples and palaces are to be found in any Mayan sites. Palenque and Copan even have open entry to underground burial chambers. Tikal has a very small number of stelae. But the richness of the stelae in Copan is unique. Nowhere else have such richly decorated stelae been found. The Copan artists were masters in preserving 3- dimensional images of their kings and rulers in the form of stelae. The kings usually have a very rigid position, standing straight with both hands on their chest. Their hair dress of feathers easily reaches 60 cm (2ft). The stelae are life sized or slightly bigger than life-sized. With the added pedestal and the hair-dress the kings become large. Besides kings they also carved jaguars, dragons and other imaginary beasts in rocks.

The second unique feature of Copan is called "Villa Rosa" (Pink House). In Tikal, Palenque and Copan alike, the newer generation always built their temples on top of the older existing temples. They believed that the power of the temples would accumulate. But by building on top they usually destroyed the older temples partially. They reused some rocks, flattened certain areas, etc. Villa Rosa is a relatively small temple from an early generation. For reasons unknown when they built on top of Villa Rosa they decided to preserve it in its entirety. They encapsulated the old temple and built a large chamber around it. On top of the large chamber they built the new temples. Villa Rosa was only discovered a few years ago and a tunnel has been built leading to an entrance of the chamber. This tunnel is now open to the public. A 1:1 replica of the 15m wide and 15m tall Villa Rosa has been placed in the museum of Copan. It is painted in its original colors: primarily red with green and white decorations.

Return Trip

My girlfriend was sent away, for security reasons they said. I waited for fifteen minutes until an armed officer guided me to the I. N. S. airport office. It was midnight, but the office was full of I. N. S. employees. Like cops everyone was armed with a gun. From last year’s experience I already knew the drill. The most important rule is to only open your mouth when you’re being asked, to keep your mouth shut when not being asked and to wait patiently. Lots of officers were running around but nobody seemed to be doing any work. One officer asked the other what he would be doing later tonight; another officer strolled around and later got a cup of coffee. Like in the military there is a strict hierarchy. One line on your shoulder means you are a nobody. Two lines on your shoulder mean you are a little bit more. One star on your shoulder means you are already somebody. Two stars and more mean you are a hot shot.

With me were 3 other people, a young woman and two guys. The young woman entered at the same time as I and the two guys were there before me. The young woman didn’t know the basic rule of interacting with the INS. After sitting there for 15 minutes she got up and asked kindly how long it would take. The response was "We don’t know. As long as it takes." She added, "But I have a connecting flight." "Please sit down. It takes as long as it takes." Five minutes later she got up again to ask if they know when the plane to her destination leaves. "We don’t have flight information. Please sit down." The tone of the voice of the INS responses got angrier with each response. When she got up for the third time she was simply yelled at "Sit down". With my lips sealed I waited patiently. Your destiny is definitely in the hands of some pencil pusher and there is nothing you can do about it. Whatever they decide they decide and most likely they will decide not to decide. This way they can’t get into any problems.

Another 15 minutes later my name was called for the first time. I was asked what had happened and I explained my case. That took two minutes and I was told to sit down again. Over the next half hour the one-stripe guy told my story to some other one-stripe guy. Later the second one-stripe guy told my story to a one-star guy, apparently the supervisor of the nightshift. Minutes later the supervisor seemed to have assigned my case to a one-stripe woman. I was witness how my case was verbally passed on 3 times. I was sure that each time the story changed slightly and the person actually assigned to my case had heard a story quite different from my original explanation to the first INS officer.

In the meantime I was following the conversations in regards to the two other males waiting with me. The first guy had a 50 page rap sheet with dozens of arrests. At the first time I thought I must have heard wrong, maybe he said 15 even though it sounded like 50. But just like my case his case was verbally communicated from one person to the next, etc. so I had the chance to hear it again and it was confirmed: 50-page rap sheet. The second guy wasn’t any better. He was arrested at the Miami airport on suspicion of smuggling humans into the US. He had several previous convictions of smuggling illegal aliens. While being searched by the INS they found a counterfeit passport in his back pocket. I felt like I was in really good company here. One person with a 50-page rap sheet and dozens of arrests, the other one with several convictions of smuggling people into the US and a false passport, and me sitting in the middle of the two.

My stop over was of about 2 hours and I had first passed 20 minutes waiting in the INS line and now I was sitting for an hour in the INS office listening to criminal stories. I already saw myself stranded for 24 hours at the Miami airport. That would be the best case. In the worst case I would spend weeks here to settle the case in front of an INS judge. But I was calm. Que sera sera. Whatever will be, will be. It is out of my hands and I will have to accept anything anyway. I might as well be calm and relaxed about it. I only thought that my poor girl friend will be quite sad, that she would be waiting somewhere, maybe at the departure gate and watch the clock nervously and feel the minutes fly by. She most likely would be the last person to get on the plane, asking the flight attendants to leave the plane door open for one more minute in the hope that I would come dashing down in the last second. She would be quite upset about having to fly home by herself.

My name was called for a second time, this time by the female officer to whom the case was apparently assigned to by the 1-star supervisor. I explained my case again. It wasn’t surprising that there were some discrepancies between what she had heard before and my version explained to her directly. She turned away and starting discussing my case again with some other person. The discussion was about how to treat the case and she had put 3 options on the table and discussed the three with the other person. The three options had special names, but not being used to the INS vocabulary I didn’t really understand what the discussion was about and what it implied. At least the term "judge" wasn’t used in the discussion. I took this as a good sign. Maybe in 24 hours I could get out of here. 10 minutes further on in thier discussion and half a coffee cup later, her coffee, not mine, she summed the discussion up with: "we could do either A or B but I am not sure". The thought "I don’t care what it is but please just do something" ran through my mind. Then she turned to the other fellow one more time and said "A is less work for me, I think I will do A" and he responded "That sounds good". Then she turned to me and said that there is no problem. I said "oh, that’s good" and thought "Didn’t the officer say the same thing last year before the 3-month ordeal started?" She then stamped the passport, handed me the passport and said I could go. I said "thanks" and thought "wow, let’s get out of here quickly before somebody changes his mind".

As I walked towards the door of the INS office my thoughts went back to reality and I became aware that my flight to Europe should be taking off pretty much these seconds. On the other side of the door of the INS office a custom service attendant from my airline was already waiting for me. My first question of course was if I was still able to make the flight. I was certain of a negative response. I had not passed customs yet, my luggage would still have to be checked for security reasons, I had to walk to a different terminal, etc. To my surprise she informed me that I do not have to worry. The plane is a bit late and that she already has radioed check-in and departure crew to inform them that I would be coming. My girl friend would be really happy to see me and I would be really happy once I sit on the plane seat and the plane is rolling out to the runway.

The airline also had informed my girl friend and I met her even before reaching the customs check. A happy reunion. We had a special escort to the departure gate and from there on everything went smoothly until touchdown in Spain. On the plane I read the newspaper and one of the news headers was "INS to be stricter and more alert due to Sep 11 aftermath".

People

A common misconception is that many people think that Americans can buy eight times as much as the locals because the exchange rate is 8:1 for US Dollar to the local currency. They think that Americans are eight times richer than the local people because the exchange rate is 8:1. I was having this discussion on the back of a pickup truck while hitchhiking and I tried to explain to the locals that the exchange rate does not make people rich or poor and that the prices are different in different countries. But all my attempts, all my explanations failed. This economic stuff is just too difficult, too abstract for them to understand.

A further misconception is also related to money. They think that the whole world is using the dollar. So they are always very surprised to find out that in my country we do not use the dollar. Frequently they then asked me about the exchange rate with my currency. Their surprise triplicated when they heard that one unit of their money equals twenty units of my money (Spanish Pesetas). They could not understand how I can live in a rich country, be rich, and yet my money is worth less than their money.

Another observation is that some of the Mexicans dealing with the tourist industry tend not to listen or to lie. First example. Minibuses leave when they are full. Once we walked up to a minivan that went where we wanted to go. Some people were standing around the bus and some sitting in the shade, and I didn’t know if any of these are waiting passengers. Since I wanted to estimate how long our wait would be, I asked, "How many people are already in the bus?" The driver’s response was "7 pesos". I wasn’t interested in the price. I asked again, "No, I want to know how many people are already in the bus?" His response "We leave when there are 7 people." I was thinking "Dummy. I can count the number of seats, and when the 7 seats that I see are occupied we leave. I know all of that." On the third attempt I asked him the same question again, "But how many people are in the bus already?" "Zero." "So, we are the first?" "Yes." Finally I knew what I wanted to know.

Second example: I stood at the bus station and a bus standing there with his engine running goes in my direction but not to the city where I want to go to. The driver is outside announcing his route. I ask him if there is a direct bus to where I want to go. He says "no" which is a plain lie. He just does not want me to walk over to the competitive bus. He continues, "No, there is no direct bus. This bus goes there," pointing at his own bus. "But that bus doesn’t go to where I want to go!" "You have to switch buses later. It’s very easy." What a conversation.

Poem to the Mayans

De maíz fuimos hechos
de luna, montaña, fuego nacemos
Tras la piel morena
una eternidad de soles vigilan el camino.
Inmortales como el tiempo
en una preñez henchida de amaneceres. 
Oímos al cafetal que nos alerta haciendo resonar la lluvia metida en sus hojas.
Con un melancólico susurro el monte nos llama hablando nuestras lenguas. 
Mujeres y hombres lanzamos nuestra lumbre al infinito.
En esas noches el cielo suelta sus estrellas y la montaña es guardián del espíritu. 
          Concepción Suarez Aguilar, 14 de Oct, 1994

My humble attempt of a translation of this piece of art follows:

We were made of corn
from moon, mountain, fire we are born
Behind the dark skin
an eternity of suns watch over the trail.
Immortals like the time
in a pregnancy filled with sun rises.
We hear the coffee plantation which alerts us echoing the rain in its leaves.
With a melancholic whisper the mountain calls us talking in our languages.
Women and men throw our fire at the infinity.
In these nights the sky lets go of its stars and the mountain is guardian of the spirit.
          Concepción Suarez Aguilar, 14 de Oct, 1994

Transport - Buses

The competition between different bus lines keeps the prices low and the stop-over breaks short. I was amazed of how fast you can move around, even if you have to change buses several times. In nearly all cases when we got off the bus we waited less than 15 minutes for the connecting bus to leave. In some cases, the transfer was instant; i.e. as you step off the first bus the second one is already full, honking its horn, they shove you in and off you go again.

Buses are an experience. They are mostly US school buses that were taken out of service 10 years ago. They are all nicely painted on the outside with colorful patterns. On the inside are all sorts of religious phrases painted on the roof, the walls and the windows. "God bless this bus and all passengers." "God is with us." But you can also find humorous remarks such as "If you are in a hurry don’t yell at the driver. You should have gotten up earlier and taken the earlier bus." "If you are in a hurry, don’t blame the driver, take a taxi." Macho statements like "I’m a heartbreaker" add to the overall ambience.

The engines have all been changed. All buses I have seen used a Caterpillar engine. Don’t know why. Maybe they are able to take more abuse. The seating on the inside however is still original "school bus". So the benches are designed for 9-years olds. Adults of European size (1.80m, 6ft) have troubles putting their knees somewhere. In addition to accommodate more people, the rule is: Each bench carries 3. So, instead of 2 young school kids, you have now 3 adults. Not surprisingly you can fit an awful lot of people on a bus. With people tightly packed in the center aisle of the bus you can add some 40 more. And if this is still not enough the remaining people ride on the roof. But with so many buses available, it is actually rare that people need to ride on the roof.

Needless to say that the bus drivers are all rally and racing pilots, at least that is how they drive. The faster you go the more business you do, the more money you can make. I enjoy going fast and getting fast to my destination, so it is not a problem with me; but I have heard many complaints from foreigners and locals alike about the irresponsible speed of the public buses.

While bus rides are mostly enjoyable and relaxing with nice visual shows as you sweep through the beautiful countryside, sometimes they can be a nightmare. Usually for two reasons: You are on a dirt road and it hasn’t rained for a month, all the windows and the door is open and the dust fills the whole bus. You can see the denseness of the dust against the rays of the sunshine, you can feel the dust grinding between your teeth and in your throat. As you get off the bus and blow your nose you can see it in your tissue and as you wash your face you can see it in your towel. The other unpleasant factor is the loudness of the music. Occasionally the pilots, the bus drivers, turn the volume of their music to the top. While this might be tolerable for 30 minutes, just imagine you are on a 3-hour ride and have to listen to this noise level without break. No thank you.

Bus rides can occasionally also have surprises. These are the exception, but here is my share of personal experiences.

Flat tire: This is just a minor inconvenience. We all got off the bus. The driver and his assistant got the toolbox out and in 45 minutes we were on our way again.

Bus won’t start: This happened three times. Also no big deal. If still in the bus station they quickly put in some other used battery. If on the road, some other bus will put itself behind, and then bumper-against-bumper push the bus until it starts. In all cases it is usually resolved in 30 minutes.

Road construction: On two occasions the road construction team closed the road down completely. We waited some 45 minutes and eventually moved on again.

Road block: Now this is something more serious. It happened to me once on the way to San Cristobal. The bus stops on the freeway and you look out the windows to realize that there is some line. You don’t think much about it and continue with whatever you were doing. 15 minutes later, as you are still standing in the same spot, you get curious. You realize that the bus hasn’t moved a single inch and that it is not a regular traffic jam. Next you realize that there is no traffic whatsoever in the other direction. It is getting hot in the bus, and the people start getting off the bus to sit down below some trees in the shade or to stand in the shade of the bus. You look through the front wind shield of the bus and as far as you can see there are cars, not moving. I start a conversation with a guy standing under a tree. It goes something like this: "Hi there." "Hi." "What’s happening here? Do you know what’s going on here?" "Yes." As he was not about to say more than just "yes" I needed to continue. "Yes? So, tell me, what’s happening?" "There is a strike." "Ah, a strike. Who is striking?" "The people." This guy is very informative. Did he think I was thinking that the cows are on strike? "Ah, the people are striking. Why are they striking?" "Human rights." "When did the strike start?" "I am not sure." "How long will the strike last?" "I am not sure." You need to understand that this is the only paved road for some 50 km (30 miles). There is no alternative route. There is no option of turning around. There is no by-passing this spot. If you want to go to San Cristobal, you have to pass through here. You must also understand that "freeway" here means: paved road with one lane in each direction without separation of lanes. It was time to find out what was really happening. About an hour passed since the bus had stopped until I was more or less informed. Today the government had decided to raise the cost of electricity. The population wanted to express their discontent. Somebody had blocked the road and they wanted to force the government to undo the price hike. The rumor had it that the strike would last till at least 7 p.m. or until the government gave in to the conditions of the strikers. I thought "Until the government gives in to the conditions of the strikers? That could take months and more likely than not it will never happen." It was now 1 p.m. That could be a long wait. I got my backpack off the bus and started looking for the bus driver. I asked him if he could give me some of the money back, because I wanted to get off the bus here and he would obviously not deliver me to the destination. I was sure he wouldn’t give me any money back, but I thought that asking can’t hurt. To my surprise he gave me half the fare back. Now I started walking. In 20 minutes I reached the road block. It was a single pick-up truck placed across both lanes on a bridge. There was no passing on the left or on the right. Some people were repeating conditions on a megaphone and I tried to pass without raising much attention. On the other side was a similar congestion, also for miles. Some people had put up hammocks to pass the time. It wasn’t long until I found a minivan that advanced on the free lane that looked for passengers on his ad-hoc shuttle service between San Cristobal and the site of the strike. The next day I met someone who waited until the strike was over. In total a 9h hold-up.

Accidents: Just three days after the road block experience, I was once again trapped in a similar situation. This time on the journey between San Cristobal and Palenque. This is a jungle route, and once again this is the only road connecting these two towns. It is only a 190km (120m) stretch but it is a windy road through the jungle and buses need 5 hours; 38 km/h (24 mph) average. Any other route would be several hundreds of miles longer. Once again the bus stopped. This time I didn’t wait to start my inspection round. As I saw the cars standing up to the next curve, I instantly got out and walked towards the problem area. In only 5 minutes I reached it. Today it was no strike, it was an accident. A bus and a 18-wheeler truck had collided head-on. Two dozens of people were standing around the accident scene. Two had blood in their face, hair and head. But apparently they were ok. They were standing around not indicating any massive pain. On the ground was a third guy whimpering in pain. I was standing next to him and felt sorry. Unfortunately there was nothing I could do for him. He was already "attended" by two others. One was putting light pressure with his hands on various spots on his chest and his belly asking him "If I press here, does this hurt?". The second assisting person tore his pants apart to get access to his legs where he seemed to have the most pain. They were looking for a vehicle to take him to Palenque, which was the nearest town at about 1 hour distance. It took a while until a car with room for the injured was found. Now I had time to look more carefully at the accident. It happened in a curve. Neither one saw the accident coming. There was absolutely no sign of any brake marks on either vehicle. The bus driver took the curve too wide, had crossed the separating line partially and the big bus, luckily empty, collided head-on with the heavily loaded big-rid. Both driving cabins were smashed and blood was on the steps to the truck cabin. Most likely each vehicle was going at 60 km/h (40 mph) as they smashed into each other. The bus driver was the wounded guy on the ground; the two bleeding guys - wearing head bandages by now - were the driver and co-driver of the truck. Someone said that the police was already called. It smelled of gasoline which seemed to leak of one of the fuel tanks and the on-watching crowd was smoking. When I realized that I quickly put some safety distance between me and the accident site. To me it looked like a really big tow truck would be necessary. It was necessary to first separate the two vehicles which were slightly intertwined and it would be difficult as there was no access for a vehicle as the two-lane road was completely blocked and on one side was a mountain cliff, on the other a steep valley. Palenque is a small town; there might not even be such a big tow-truck available there. It could take hours before a tow truck company would decide to send out a tow truck. It would take up to 4 hours for the tow truck to drive here; it would take hours of work for the collided vehicles to be separated. It was about 2 p.m. In my thinking processes I concluded that our bus might spend the whole night here and continue onward tomorrow. I got my backpack off the bus, asked for a partial refund which I didn’t get this time and walked to the other side of the accident. It wasn’t difficult to find someone opportunistic who turned this into a good business opportunity and offered a ride on the back of his pick-up truck to Palenque. With 16 people standing on the back of the pickup truck we rushed off. Within only 2 minutes one of the women started to panic. She was German and spoke to her boyfriend "I want to get off, we can’t go like this. There are too many people. Why are there so many people on the pick-up?" In a soothing voice her boyfriend calmed her down. Eventually she changed her mind and without any incident we reached our destination. I never found out what happened at the accident scene. It took 2.5 hours for the police to arrive and apparently on the next day the road was clear.

Transport - Hitchhiking

Crime

After the theft we had to go to the police station to file a report. The police officers were quite friendly. We got a chair to sit down, and since there are no computers the officers started to type the report with 5 carbon duplicates on a typewriter. He worked the typewriter in the 1-finger system. When he showed the report to his superior, his boss told him that he didn’t like a sentence. Of course, now he had to type the entire page all over again to correct the disliked sentence.

I have witnessed an even simpler crime. I was waiting inside the waiting room of a bus station. Two foreigners walk in to buy a ticket and we start to chat. They stand about 2m from the back wall and as we have to wait a while they put their huge backpacks down and lean them against the wall right behind them. We continue to talk. A local walks into the waiting room where about 10 other people are present. He grabs one of the backpacks and heads towards the door. Just as he reached the door the foreigner that I was talking to yelled, "Hey, that’s my backpack" and made two steps to grab it. It was incredible. I was watching the whole thing, I saw the guy come in, I saw him take the backpack, but I was just not alert, I didn’t realize that right in front of my eyes a theft is taking place. Being alert and watchful I should have realized that this was the tourist’s backpack. Locals never use these modern packs and furthermore I have seen my conversation partner put it down. While my eyes saw it, my brain was just not thinking. When the tourist took the backpack of the thief’s back, the thief simply said, "Oh, a mix up. I thought that this is my pack. Mine looks just like it." Then he looked for a minute around the waiting room and afterwards pointed at a different backpack that was only half the size and of completely different color and said, "Ah, there is mine." Without getting "his" backpack he quickly left. Worst of all is that the thief has absolutely nothing to risk or to lose. If he is caught he just says "sorry" and that’s it. Nothing will happen to him. So, if you don’t catch him your backpack is his, and if you do catch him he says "sorry" and walks away to steal some other backpack 10 minutes later. But he will only steal backpacks of tourists. For two reasons: they carry more valuable stuff but more importantly, if he is caught stealing the backpack of another local he runs the risk of being stoned in an act of self justice.

In the newspaper I read that on a bus ride a young lady wanted to get off, but the bus driver being in a hurry to pick up more people didn’t want to stop and ignored her. She wanted to get off so desperately that she decided to jump off. While jumping off the moving bus she was obviously severely hurt and the remaining passengers started to insist that the driver stops. The driver still didn’t stop and the passengers got angry and more or less forced him to stop. After the bus driver stopped, he quickly jumped out of the bus ran across the street and jumped onto a bus that was leaving this very second to escape the angry crowd. When the police later caught him he explained that he feared for his life and was afraid of being lynched by the upset passengers. His fear was quite justified as people not so infrequently take rights into their own hands and kill perpetrators caught in the act.

A case of such self "justice" happened in Todos Santos three years ago. For still unknown reasons a suddenly angry crowd killed two people, one local and one foreigner, by stoning them to death. An obvious reason was never found, and there are many rumors as to why it happened. Most likely it was just misinterpretation or misunderstanding of their acts. What puzzles me is that also a local person was stoned. He spoke Spanish and Mam and could have verbally explained what they have been doing to avoid misunderstandings. One of the rumors says that the crowd was warned hours before that foreigners are coming to town to steal their children and that everyone should be very alert. Hours later a bus arrived (as usual) and on bord was a female tourist and her local guide. The tourist later tried to take a harmless picture of a child and came close to a child. The childs mother paniced and yelled "She is stealing my baby" and her whole family attacked the female tourist. The guide rushed in to help the tourist. More local town folks came running to help the local family. The result was 2 people killed. Police later arrested and convicted several attackers.

There are many tricks that are being worked all over Guatemala. In the coin trick somebody drops several coins at the street, close to your feet. You have the natural instinct to help the "poor" woman recollecting them. While you do and while you are distracted somebody else will "collect" your wallet or your backpack if you have placed it on the ground to have your hands free to recollect the coins. The faint trick: Somebody faints next to you. Same thing, you get distracted, want to help, put your possession on the ground, and somebody else "helps" himself to your possessions. But people also fake bike accidents to stop a vehicle. As you stop armed men step out of the bushes and you can say goodbye to your valuables. The fake bus ticket trick: Somebody stands at the bus door and sells you a ticket for the bus. The catch is of course that this guy doesn’t work for the bus company and the ticket he sells you isn’t worth the paper it is printed or written on. It is easy to avoid. Just pay on the bus once the bus is in motion. Mustard trick: A trick very popular in Antigua. Somebody squirts mustard on the back of your jacket or backpack. Next a very well dressed, apparently rich, local woman tips you on the shoulder to inform you about the fact. She is then so kind to offer you "help" cleaning the mess off. She and her colleagues are highly skilled pickpockets and besides cleaning you jacket or bag they clean you out as well.

To combat crime and to make tourist feel safer, the government has created a special tourist police. You obviously only find them at tourist locations. Armed with machine guns they guard a few national parks, certain limited sites of Maya ruins, and a few tourist towns. If you want to climb a volcano, you make a reservation with the tourist police and they will send an armed cop with you to provide you with protection against attacks on mountain trails. The cop will hike with you to the top of the volcano and back, free of charge. For example, all organized tourist trips in Antigua that lead into the mountains carry one cop per minibus. If you want to walk to the lookout point, just 30 minutes north of Antigua the same procedure should be followed. You go to the tourist office, inform them and they provide you with your personal body guard. In other areas such as San Pedro at Atitlan Lake the tourist police will close off roads that are considered too dangerous to tourists. As tourist you are told that you cannot enter that region and that’s it. These are roads on which in the past repeatedly armed robberies took place. Whole buses, not to mentioned individual cars, have been stopped with machine guns by the attackers and then everyone is carefully cleaned of their possessions. Thereafter the perpetrators disappear into the road-side forest and jungle, or with your car.

And the worst crime is the one by the cops and government officials. On the border between Guatemala and Honduras the immigration police officers invented a non- existing fee to feed his own personal pocket. I have crossed in and out of Guatemala already before, when going to Mexico. Leaving or entering Guatemala on foot (without a car) is free. This has also been confirmed by other tourists that we spoke with several days ago. As we get to the border post, the Guatemalan officer wants the equivalent of $5. My alarm bells go off instantly. These are corrupted officers and they want a bribe. This really upsets my stomach. I despise this and I more than hate paying bribes. I am not willing to put up with this. I kindly ask the officer where on the immigration slip it shows this amount. He just says that it doesn’t show. Next I ask him for a receipt. It was furthermore very funny that the Guatemalan officer asked for Honduran money and not for Guatemalan currency. Very suspicious; I have never met a government who has set the prices of his official fees in a foreign currency that is not US$. He wasn’t quite eager to give me or write me a receipt. Obviously there were no official receipts and as I thought that next he will write the number by hand on a piece of paper, I explained to him that I am surprised. That I have been in and out of the country before and that I never had to pay anything. He just responded by saying, "In other border posts you might not have to pay. But here, yes, you have to pay. This is a special service that allows you to leave and enter the country more quickly." I asked some locals that were waiting in line and they informed me that they don’t pay. As I ask the officer about that he naturally also had an answer for this "Only foreigners have to pay. Citizens of Guatemala and Honduras do not have to pay." I repeated that this has never happened to me before and that I am very surprised why it should be different here than at other border crossings. As the discussion between us went on, he dragged a thick book out of a shelf which had a bookmark on a certain page where the same number showed. He said "This is the law. Here you see, you have to pay." I read the text. It was not convincing at all. First the book was so old that it was most likely published before I was born. Many things can change in 30 years. Second, while the amount matched, it stated clearly that it was in local currency, but he wanted the same amount in Honduran currency. After reading the sentence twice I still didn’t understand it exactly, because it was a lot of legal-speak that could be interpreted in any way. It meant nothing; it might apply to some certain conditions and to the generation living before me. I was not about to read the whole book and make a legal interpretation. I just repeated that I had no desire to pay. That of course was the wrong thing to say. It made things only worse. Now he wanted to collect our passports to take the data and he said that now he has to do it "the official way" and now he has to ask us for twice the fee. He said, "I just wanted to help you, do it the quick way and only charge you half the fee. Now you force me to do it the slow way and charge you the full fee, which is twice as much as before." I already negotiated with this guy for 10 minutes, tried to reason with him, without success. It didn’t look like he would give in. I saw the chances of us getting out of here without paying a bribe slip to zero. I also got worried about handing him my passport. It could get "confiscated" too easily for whatever excuse. It was time to do damage control. I changed my strategy. I explained that I am just a simple tourist and that the local customs and regulations are unknown to me; that I sincerely apologize for my behavior and that I kindly ask him to accept my apology. That I was not aware that he was trying to help us but that now I have realized that he was only acting in our best interest and that I have been so foolish to doubt his words. I explained that I am very sorry, very sorry for causing him extra work, and very sorry for this whole misunderstanding in general, and that we would happily pay the originally requested fee. So for a few minutes I brushed verbal honey around his mouth until he returned me my passport. We paid the original fee. While placing a sweet smile on my face, I was internally grinding my teeth. Next, we moved on to the Honduran immigration window just a few meters away. There the fee of $1 seemed legitimate; we paid it and finally moved across the border. This is just another form of well organized crime; at least in my opinion.

Summary

It was the right choice to skip the tourist sights and to spend time in a small community. Living with the Mayans was a lot more interesting than seeing the Mayan ruins. The Mayans are not dead, the live on and many of them live very similarly to the ways of their ancestors. Living with them is more real than seeing the ruins. You can touch them, talk to them and share ideas with them. Better then wandering around in lifeless ruins no matter how fascinating these might be.

I am not a different person now. Two and a half weeks of volunteering have not changed my life or changed my thinking drastically. No, I am still the same, but with one experience richer. I have seen life from a different angle, I learned one more possible way of life. Living with the Mayans is an enriching contrast to our daily lives.