if i were a travel writer... i'd write of places near or far... of places i've arrived to by plane, bus, train or car... and along the way, i'll take some photos... and so, here my story goes...

Hola. I am back, and in the process of uploading my many photos. But I figured I'd send on my last little (well, epic) entry in the meantime... Mis ultimos tres dias en Guatmala... and you thought I'd keep you hanging? Me encanta bus rides. And it's a good thing too because in the last 72 hours of my trip, I spent casi 20 hours in some sort of bus getting to or from somewhere. I realized that I'm not the only one in Guatemala that has no concept of time. It seems Guatemaltecos, too, don't have any sense of how long anything takes. The bus trip from Antigua to Rio Dulce, for example, me dijo que dura 5 horas y que va a llegar a las 6;00pm. La realidad es que llego a las 8:30pm. For the first part of the bus trip (not the first half, just the first bus from Antigua to Guatemala City, which was about an hour), I sat right behind the driver with the window open, watching the scene change from cobblestoned streets and beautifully colored homes (this guy I met with a "thursday" shirt on in the cafe told me that Antigua controls what color people paint their homes - no wonder it's all so beautiful!) to the locura that is Guatemala City. I soon realized that my lungs were filled with exhaust and thought I best sit by a closed window on the next bus ride from the city to Rio Dulce. The next bus ride was about 6 hours long. But as I said before, I am beginning to really enjoy the time that a long commute gives me to think and be, with myself. And it's also, honestly, (I think) one of the best ways to learn about the people of a country. I know I felt that way in Asia, and Central America is no different except that I can actually communicate with the people as opposed to just using body language as we did in Asia. For part of the journey, a guatemalteca dressed in a pink and grey plaid shirt and matching capris sat next to me. I thought she was beautiful, with her copper eye shadow and burnt red lipstick. I can't remember the last time I really put on some makeup! I thought our conversation was doomed once she told me her second husband left her to go to the US and get married to an American girl. I almost wanted to lied to her when she asked me, "De donde eres?," but I didn't. She still kept her smile and warm presence, advising me that it's better to be single. I laughed, it always seems the grass is greener on the other side. But I guess she's been on both sides and still feels soltera es mejor. She got off right before our big 15-20 minute break at the gas station/cafeteria/bathrooms. Well, they told us it would be a 10 minute break, but at 15 minutes, the driver and his assistant were sitting at the cafe having a sandwich and soda. Oh well, que puede hacer? I ended up meeting an English couple who had been in San Marcos for 5 weeks prior - definitely could sense that they came from the "energy vortex" of Lake Atitlan. They were probably in their 60's and have obviously traveled a ton. One of their next stops was working on an organic farm in Ireland, that was also a spiritual community of some sort. How interesting their life together must be. Then there was this young Australian couple - Melanie and Mateo - that have been dating for a year and since Mateo hasn't traveled much, they saved money and decided to take about a year to see Central and South America. And then there was Leopaulo, a solo traveler from Spain (from the region between Basque and Asturias), who quit his job on a boat and decided to use the money he saved to travel, rather than buy a house. I swear, if my mother had met Leo, she would've paid a dowery (I'm sure she has considered going to these measures) to have him bring me back to Spain and marry him. A Fortunately for me and the Australian couple, Leo is really good at negotiating hostel prices. Once we arrived in the run-down Rio Dulce, after being hassled by several guys trying to bring us to "the best hotel," Leo was able to find one off the main road for us at Q50/person. By the way, the name Rio Dulce - sweet river - is quite misleading. There was a fair in the town under the bridge, so Leo and I went to explore it and the town before heading to bed. I can compare it to Camden, NJ or maybe Newark on the last night of the Portuguese feast when just the shady or really loud people are left celebrating. Well, maybe it wasn't that bad, but let's just say I was grateful to actually have a traveling companion, a male one. We got a kick out of some of the carnival games - one had 5 large plates floating in wather and you have to throw Q1 coin and try to have it land on the plate. Not a bad concept for a game - but the prize was either 2 cans of soda (if the Q hit one plate before landing on another) or a liter of soda (if the Q landed directly on just one plate and stayed). We tried, but neither of us were able to do it. I guess, being that I don't like soda, there wasn't much incentive to keep playing! And then there were the rides... which were more like death traps than my first car, "Rusty," teh '82 Oldsmobile Omega. Not even to just the people on the rides, but there were no gates to protect the people as they walked by, as the ride was spinning over the pedestrian walkway. No rules, yet somehow, it works. We decide after the 7 hours of traveling, we should get something to eat and figure it's probably cheapest at the fair, so we take a seat in a big tent with tables... and there's a mini-stage with 2 couples dancing (or humping) to the reggaeton that is blaring through the speakers... and there's about 20-30 people standing in a line, just watching, policeman including. There's also about 6 TV screens, half showing a bullfight/rodeo and the others a series of really ghetto music videos. They are only serving one type of comida, so we order that - the smallest portion possible, which isn't that small and actually arrives on one of those large plates that they were using for the Q1 coin/soda toss game. The mini tortilla chicken tacos are good, and the cold gallo (cerveza) is even better, because it is so hot outside in Rio Dulce, even at 10:30pm. Leo and I can pretty much only look at each other, the music so loud it's hard to think, let alone hear each other. By our second gallo, the stage crowd disappeared and the music turned from reggaeton to a slower, calmer genre... and so, I was able to actually talk to my new friend. I never knew so many people had an interest in working on boats (I had met an american on volcan pacaya that was traveling to Panama to work on boats), and I had never realized how many different types of boats there were en el mundo. We continued, speaking about family, living in the city, saving money, his decision to travel vs. buy a house, work, priorities at age 28-29, language, Granada!... and I realized something that has happened quite a few times on this trip - that the brief encounters with people you only "know" for a few hours as you both pass through the same place for this brief shared moment in time, are deeper than most of the "surface" encounters I have with acquaintances back home. I wonder why that is? Anyway, we head back to our room and right before we go to bed, Leo says, "que te suenes con los angelitos," just like Laura (my Spanish roommate in Granada used to say to me). And I think, how nice it is to not be sola, in Rio Dulce. I wake up as the sun rises (and the rooster crows) and take a 5 minute (cold) shower and am ready to make my trip to Finca del Paraiso and secure my bus ride back to Antigua. It's my last full day in this country =( and after my experience on the bus to Rio Dulce, I'm feeling pretty doubtful that I will make it back to Antigua in time... and a part of me is wondering why in the world I traveled 8 hours to Rio Dulce knowing I'd have to make the return trip the following day. Que sera, sera. I have a pretty difficult time getting my ticket to Guate City (they don't go directly to Antigua), changing my dollars to quetzal (because I am down to Q20) and finding my "bus" to Finca del Paraiso. But, by 8:00am, I am on a shuttle, a little nervous that I may not make it back for my 1:00pm bus back to Guatemala City (and even more nervous that once I arrive in Guatemala City, I won't be able to get a bus back to Antigua), but I go. Afterall, I came all this way, I may as well go see what I came to see - which is the hot spring waterfall, "one of Guatemala's greatest natural phenomenas." One guy told me the ride was 30 minutes, another one and a half hours, so at this point, I don't know what to expect, which makes me even more nervous. But I go with it. Guatemalans have been pretty nice to me and although there's always this moment of, "should I trust them?," I usually decide to remain as naive and trusting as I generally am in the States, which luckily has worked out for me. They drop me off at this parada and I give these 2 guys Q10 as an entrance to the waterfall, and Francisco - my guide - takes me on a 10 minute hike to the hot spring waterfall. When I arrive, there's only 5 others there. An Australian girl, her boyfriend from Panama, her mother, her mother's friend, and their guide. I teach Francisco how to use my camera, take a photo of him and his guide friend and climb down the rocks to the water. It's cold at first, but then as you near the falls, there are patches of hot (not that warm patch you get when you're swimming through pee in the ocean) water... and it's so hot, it's like a sauna hot. And I just float on my back, in this hot water, looking up at the trees around me and the water falling off a cliff next to me... and realizing that the others have left... and it's just me, in this space - in this natural and beautiful place. And I wonder how it's not packed with people who live nearby... because if there's such beauty and such peace so close, why wouldn't they be here? But then I think how lucky I am to not be sharing this moment, in such natural and peaceful beauty, with anyone else... except Francisco, who when I looked up, was waving me in. He was a bit paranoid of the wind and leaves from the trees above falling down on me. I appreciated his concern and decided to get out, change and make the 10 minute hike back and wait for the next bus back to Rio Dulce, which luckily, came very quickly. The terrain out there is really different. We passed these green pastures with all these cows grazing, and then in the middle of the green were these trees that resembled palm trees - I'd call it a tropical countryside, if one existed. I don't know if it's because we were so close to Belize, but it was just beautiful... and then we arrived back in Rio Dulce. I ran back to the bus station to catch the 11:00am bus instead of the 1:00pm bus I originally purchased that morning. The guy collecting tickets said, NO - that the bus was full, but somehow I sweet talked him into letting me on (don't ask me how I managed that one). He probably had the last laugh, though, because I had to stand for the first 45 minutes of the trip. It's like 10 times worse than standing on a crowded Blvd. East bus to Port Authority in the morning commute when you're stuck on the helix - except we're not stuck... we're moving... pretty fast... and they don't make turns with us in mind... and the fact that Jeremy's "drivers license" is just a copy of his passport all seems to make sense at this moment. I look down and there are 2 women - one with 3 small children laying on top of her... the other is sleeping, with her breast exposed, holding a tiny baby who is making her way to her "food" every few minutes. I think, I'm probably more comfortable standing. I finally get a seat, which is a good thing, because we make a stop and a flood of vendors come into the bus (earlier they were just outside the window like papparazzi not trying to get photos, but trying to get quetzal... and get rid of what they were selling) - "agua... papaya... mango... pan de pina... para llevar a su casita..." These vendors are some of the best salespeople I've seen in awhile... and it's actually convenient for people who can't get to the market because they are on a bus. I had gotten 3 sweet breads in Rio Dulce, so I was good for the trip... but that pina did look good. We arrive at the bus terminal in Guate City by 5:00pm (yes!) and I get ambushed, as usual, by cab drivers and people wanting to set me up with a hotel, bus, tuk tuk, horse, anything. I say, "NO gracias" and walk myself to the ticket booth. They tell me there are no buses to Antigua at this terminal... because there are 3 terminals in Guatemala City. Great, just great. I walk out of the ticket office, looking for one of those guys who tried to ambush me with information. Instead, I find a Canadian guy, a German girl and another girl from Norway. Out of us all, I speak the best Spanish (for once) and so negotiate a Q20 cab ride to Barrio 3 terminal, where we are told we can get a bus to Antigua. The Canadian/Norwegian pareja travel in one cab and I travel in another with the very paranoid German girl. She's telling me how she doesn't feel safe in Guatemala and how she heard you should never, ever leave the bus terminal in Guate City. And I'm thinking - Geez, how do you expect to get back to Antigua, girl??? We get there (safely) 5 minutes before the other cab and she's freaking out (because she thinks she'll never see her friends again) and also, because she realizes we are making the trip on a chicken bus. Guatemala City is crazy. It's crazier than the chaos of Hanoi, Vietnam that was filled with honking motorcycles and essentially no traffic system. In Guatemala City, as I looked out of the chicken bus window, as we approached the highway, I saw a traffic jam of the crazily painted chicken buses mixed with pedestrians climbing over the highway dividers and walking between the exhaust pumping buses... and in the middle of it all, there were 2 blonde gringos riding their bikes through the madness. Are you kidding me? In a few minutes, without the bus even really stopping, I see the 2 Canadians get on the bus... their bikes already on the top of the chicken bus. The bus fills up - I swear, this is pretty much a schoolbus, yet 3 people sit across each seat and they keep letting more and more people on. At one point, I looked out the window and there were 3 men holding on to the outside of the bus... while it was moving... on the highway. Absolute madness. As we approach Antigua - and I know we've arrived once the pavement turns into cobblestone - I'm able to talk to one of the 2 Canadian boys and try to figure out why in the world they were riding their bikes in the middle of the chicken bus madness. He tells me they are both turning 30 this year and as part of the BIG year, they decided to bike from Panama to Cancun, although they are realizing that a month is not quite enough time and have spent a lot of time on buses, finding their bikes to be quite a hassle. I could just imagine. How awesome of an idea, though, even if they fully can't fulfill it. I end up having dinner with the Canadian boys, another couple and Jean - a 24 year old girl from Long Island who just finished 2 years in the Peace Corps in Peru and is making her way back home, but taking her time. Just listening to her stories, I am so impressed with the experiences she's had in only 24 years. We went for some Mayan Hot Chocolate (made from the chocolate bar, although Mom - yours is better) at one of the hostel/bars, Jungle Party. We start talking to the owner, a young architect from El Salvador and she explained how she opened the hostel with no money, and now - it's one of the most popular hostels in Antigua among backpackers. I guess sometimes, all you do need is only a dream. There were 2 colombian men staying at the hostel with 2 huge motorcycles. They are riding from Colombia to Canada. What a journey. What a dream. Que viaje. Que sueno.