Yet another dispatch from the crazy streets of Guatemala.
Last week was spent at the project for 2 days and then sick in bed for the next 3. Apparently if you have not eaten meat in 14 years, it is not a wise idea to decide to eat a hamburger from some tiny little restaurant on a side street in Guatemala. Let’s just say I said many special prayers of thanks to the makers of Cipro.
I managed to get myself dosed up on enough pills and potions to head off to the north of the country to visit the town of Flores and the Mayan pyramids of Tikal. We took the overnight bus (its a 10 hour trip) and at first we thought we had totally got a great deal through a travel agent down here and couldn’t figure out why we had paid $17 when all the other agents charged $30. We got our answer when our shuttle into the city dropped us off at the bus station...clearly, we were not going to be on the tourist buses and all the locals kept looking at us strangely as though to say "Um...are you girls sure you are in the right place??" After a truly memorable bathroom experience we boarded a bus that was probably a Greyhound bus 40 years ago, complete with a rusted out floor you could see the street through. I was the only white girl on there but had somehow lucked out and scored a seat in the front row so after we dropped off the hundred extra people we picked up along the way in the townships outside the city I had plenty of leg room.
The trip was an adventure to be sure... The rains here caused a mudslide last week so a portion of the highway had disappeared down the mountain side and we got stuck on the side of the road waiting for the construction crews to work for an extra 2 hours. Once we finally got moving again the bus slowly climbed up through the winding mountain passes. We passed 3 other accidents along the way and just as I was drifting to sleep our bus jerked sideways and the back half ended up hanging over the edge of a sheer cliff. Everyone very quickly evacuated the bus while they attempted to keep it from falling over the edge and the locals all got quite a kick out of the terror that was clearly written across our faces. I asked one of the women I had been sitting beside if this was normal, and she laughed and said yes. Once they got the bus up on the road again, everyone got back on as though nothing had happened and we carried along the way. Once the adrenaline subsided I drifted back to sleep and I could feel the man beside me tucking my sweater in around me each time it slipped off my shoulder. Cozy and safe.
We arrived in Flores just as the sun came up, found a hotel and were on the road to Tikal (about 45 minutes away) by 8 am. Tikal is one of the biggest complexes of Mayan pyramids buried deep in the jungle and it was absolutely spectacular. We met an Aussie, a Brit and an Israeli and split on an english tour guide who walked us through the jungle while monkeys swung overhead, showing us plants and seeds and medicines as we went. We got to climb most of the big pyramids and the view from above the jungle was amazing - a sea of rich, lush green punctuated by the tops of the other pyramids jutting up into the sky. Very moving moments. We sat atop on of the tallest ones and watched a storm slowly roll in across the sky until a massive bolt of lightening shot down from above very nearby and the heavens shook with thunder. I swear I could feel the power of the gods and Mama Gaia at that moment, perched atop the solid stone as the skies roared. As we scrambled down the steps towards safety the clouds burst with rain and within moments we were drenched. We huddled beneath the exceptionally effective coverage of palm leafs and I danced with joy. Buried deep in the rain forest, soaked to the core at the base of pyramids thousands of years old. Bliss. We ended the night back in Flores on the rooftop of our hotel overlooking the lake, wrapped in a blanket of stars and watching the brilliant gold of another lightening storm far off in the distance.
I am happy to report that the trip home was far more uneventful and we made it back to Guatemala City safe and sound. I was awash in happiness from the weekend, but as we stepped off the bus our driver nonchalantly nodded his head to a crowd in the corner and said "meurto", and sure enough there was a dead body lying in the gutter in a pool of blood. And such are the lessons of this place...beauty and brutality all rolled into one...
|  | 
|
