Getting to Xela part 2: The Bus to Xela
Trip Start
Jul 14, 2007
1
3
11
Trip End
Aug 11, 2007
Quetzaltenango,
Guatemala
Saturday, July 14, 2007
Before I could have a total meltdown, I decided to try to tackle the money problem
The bus arrives
. Just inside a security post, I could see people in line holding money. The entrance was separated from the exit, so I walked right past the unmarked bank, which was little more than a window with two teller positions. I went to the security guard and asked if he spoke English. Of course not. But, luck was on my side because one of the airline employees came over to talk to the guard and he spoke English. I asked hi if I could come back in to change money. The guard had to ask someone else, but apparently they took pity on me because they let me back in.There was only one teller at the window and there were about 10 American missionaries and one Latina in front of me with whom I had a brief, but pleasant conversation in English about Xela and Guatemala. The missionary women were part of a large group that was waiting on their bus to arrive to go to Antigua. Because each and every one of them had to exchange money (ever hear of pooling the cash and dividing it later, ladies?) it took about 40 minutes for me to get to the teller. I would later think several unkind thoughts about the oblivious American ladies in line ahead of me.
At this point, it was 12:15 before I made it outside. Even though Patricia was waiting for me and Roberto came to pick up us at almost the moment she called him on her cell, there was no way I was going to make the 12:30 bus to Xela
The driveway for the bus
. As Roberto would tell me, Saturdays are paydays in Guatemala City and everyone was out shopping. Traffic was awful and as soon as we left the airport, it started raining. Cars crept down the roads and motorcycles made their own lanes along the lane divides. I find myself thinking that Dan would be horrified at these cyclists with obvious death wishes--but at least most were wearing helmets. It's the little victories in the name of safety in that sort of chaotic environment, I guess. It took us about 30 minutes to get to the bus company's terminal. Roberto helped me get my bags into the terminal in the rain and bought my ticket. Of course, as soon as he left, it stopped raining. Figures. The next bus was at 3:00 and was scheduled to arrive in Xela at 7:00. I would have about two hours to watch people out-walk the traffic on the congested street outside and listen to the cacophonic chorus of honking that seemed to happen at random intervals.
The terminal itself was a small building that I would have missed if I had passed it on the street. It was set back from the street to allow the bus to back into a space about one and half times its size. The waiting area contained three small rows of seats (25 in all), a counter area, and two bathrooms. One the wall, a sign warned that thieves were known to steal bags
Warning-Ladrones
. (I'm including a picture of the sign so that you can see its dire warning. The Spanish version is much shorter than the English.) On the floor near the wall sat a large pile of boxes, which would grow larger as people brought more in as the departure time approached. The private, first class buses apparently do a fair business in packages, though I have no idea how the claims system works because the package labels were sometimes little more than a name and "Xela." When I arrived, there were only a handful of people in the terminal: a man and his son, two workers, an armed security guard, and a guy sending a package. It was 2 hours before the bus was to leave and I was starting to get hungry. At Dulles, I had eaten a scone and bought a 33oz bottle of water and some trail mix. I had also saved the bagel from my in-flight meal, which I ate at the station. That didn't stop me from briefing considering mugging the sandwich delivery guy who brought lunch to the clerk or the guy who came up on the Pollo Campenero motorcycle to deliver chicken to the man and his son (apparently they called out for delivery on their cell phone). I would later briefly entertain a wish for a very large stick to use against another chicken delivery guy that I saw while on the bus. I didn't want to chance walking around Guatemala City with both of my packs on. Let's face it, a white girl so covered in black backpacks that she looks like some mutated black canvas turtle would not fit in. So, I ate my bagel and nibbled on the trail mix and I was ok. That trail mix that I carried with me from DC would turn out to be the best investment I'd made that day because it was all I would have to eat all the way to Xela.
In the bus station, I met two Americans, Kenny and Mary. I didn't end up sitting next to either of them on the bus, but I got chances to talk to both in the terminal and during the trip. Kenny breezed into the station at about 1:40, went up to the counter and started speaking fluent Spanish. He looked calm and confident. He told me later that he was from Boston and had gone to Xela about 13 years ago to study Spanish. When he left, he had a wife, too. She was already visiting her relatives in Xela and he was going to meet her, spend a little time in Xela, and then go the the Cays. Mary is from New York and is about to start medical school. She took about 3 years "off" from her degree studies to work and attend Harvard's post baccalaureate program because her Latin American history degree didn't include the courses she'd need for pre-med. She was traveling to Xela for 2 weeks of Spanish class at Juan Sisay School.
At about 2:30, a reincarnated Greyhound bus stops traffic and backs into the drive in front of the station. A man who I'd later realize was the mechanic/assistant/ticket collector popped open the back engine compartment and shut off the engine by hand. He then checked the fluid levels, filled those that needed it, and started loading the now sizable pile of boxes. The bus is fairly prompt and at 3:03 we are underway. We get about halfway out of the drive and stop for about three minutes while we wait for the light at the end of the block to change. When it turns green, I understand why I kept hearing the car horn choir--the green light lasts about 30 seconds and changes again. In that cycle, we made it almost to the gas station at the end of the block. So, when the light turned green and the car-horn choir made its 25th encore since my arrival at the station, we were able to make it onto the main road, despite almost being broadsided by a reincarnated school bus that was desperately trying to make it out of the gas station and make the light, too.
Traffic out of the city was heavy, but still moving. I was like a kid on her first trip into the city, looking everywhere at once. In addition to the many camionetas (school buses used as inexpensive buses here, a.k.a. chicken buses), a box truck in front of us held about a dozen oxen stuffed onto its railed-in flat bed. The ox truck and our bus would pass each other several times in the next hour. Mary was sitting two rows ahead of me, reading, but I managed to get Mary's attention and point that out to her because I knew we'd never see that in an American city. Also, I saw the first of several police roadblocks that I would see on the trip. The police take over one lane and flag down random cars to presumably question the drivers. I couldn't ever figure out what their criteria were, but I did see them frisk at least one guy at a stop.
About 15-20 minutes into the trip, a woman at the front of the bus got up and started what was obviously a sales pitch for the small bottles of perfume that she pulled out of her handbag. Though I didn't understand everything she said, I caught that the basic price was 36 quetzales per bottle and I'm pretty sure she offered a deal for two or more. She was obviously quite practiced and also seemed to know the driver. However, in the middle of her speech, I was almost struck with a fit of giggles because the oxen truck passed us yet again. The juxtaposition of the smell of cows and the woman selling perfume seemed quite funny, probably because I was tired, but I managed to keep myself from giggling like a madwoman as she approached me with the perfume. She probably took my wide smile and "no gracias" as a friendly denial, and that's ok with me. After she made a few sales, she returned to the front of the bus and sat of the driver's armrest until she got off of the bus at Chimaltenego. She probably caught a camioneta back to Guatemala City after making a couple hundred quetzales. Not bad for about 15 minutes work on a two hour round trip. I suspect that she didn't even have to pay for our bus, so it was almost pure profit. The spirit of entrepreneurship lives in Guatemala!
The road seemed to keep going up and we would pass many towns along the way. Some were little more than crossroads stops for camionetas while others seemed to be a bit larger. In between was the most amazing farm land. It seemed that every acre was used, even if the slope was impossible. Men with hoes slung over their shoulders walked along the road, as did a few men leading donkeys that carried baskets of crops. Given the slopes of some of these fields, I would imagine that manual farming would be more efficient, even if the farmers could afford more modern equipment.
The men obviously returning were not the only ones along the road. .Families walked along side the road and I saw several men on bicycles as well. Some of those bikes were in rough shape, but the riders pushed them up and down hills and mountains--those guys were in serious shape, I bet. Perhaps the most surprising things that I saw along the road were the animals. I saw more than one man taking a cow for a walk, the cow conveniently trimming the grass as they went. I saw several cows, goats, and a few horses tied down right next to the road--no fences, just staked to the ground. Now, given how fast some of the vehicles went along the road and some of th3ee absolutely insane passing maneuvers by camionetas and motorcyclists with death wishes, I would think twice about putting livestock that close to the fray. People, at least, have a chance of getting clear of entanglements. But, I saw livestock staked near the road time and again.
Central American Highway 1 is the primary road that we took between Guatemala City and Xela. This road is under some pretty serious construction. I'm not sure what they are hoping to achieve. In some areas, it seems that they are just improving the road bed, while in others, they are obviously widening the two lane road to four lanes. However, the Guatemalan method of road construction is quite different than back home. There are long stretched of road that is stripped down practically to dirt, with no evidence that the construction crew is closely following the destruction crew. In some places, it seems that the objective is to move tons of rock around; in others, it seems that the need one lane closed. In the later, the road becomes one lane and access points seem to be several kilometers apart. This results in huge traffic backups. We got caught in one of those for at least 30 minutes. There must have been an accident, too because an ambulance came back up the road and headed to the nearest town; however I never saw any evidence once we got underway again.
The road destruction and the inability of our reincarnated greyhound to climb the sleep slopes with any speed (seriously, several old school buses passed us) made the bus late. At 6:30, full darkness had almost fallen and Xela was nowhere in sight. I began to think several unkind thoughts about the missionaries who could have changed their money about 5 times over in Antigua, which is only about 45 minutes from Guatemala City. They were probably comfortably ensconced in their hotel after an afternoon of sightseeing while I was wondering how I was going to get to my hotel in the dark and rationing trail mix to keep myself from feeling hungry.
It wasn't until 7:15 that I would see glimpses of a town with enough lights that it might be Xela. At first, I couldn't tell for sure because we went around several mountains that blocked the view. Even though I finally saw the city, it would be 45 more minutes before we got into town. The road winds almost all the way around the valley as it slowly descends into Xela and the surrounding towns. (I use the term valley here only in the sense that Xela is surrounded by mountains. The city itself is by no means totally flat and I walk up and down small hills here all the time). As we drove through the city, I couldn't really see much of it or get my bearings. Even though the city has some streetlights, the streets are narrow and uneven and the lights are quite dim by American standards.
A little after eight, after 5 hours of sometimes teeth rattling travel, we arrived at a small terminal like the first, except that the bus had no driveway to back into. Xela was dark and no one was there to meet me or to meet my new friend Mary. Neither of us speaks much Spanish and the dark and our lack of a good map made impossible to figure out how to get anywhere.
Thus began Chris and Mary's excellent adventure in Xela, which I will write more about in part 3.
