Terms and Conditions

Grigos call them Chicken Buses, beaten up American school buses with divine murals of hay-zoos airbrushed all over. I can think of two reasons why the term was coined; either because the passengers often carry chickens, or, the drivers play chicken with oncoming traffic whilst overtaking around blind corners on mountain roads. Either way, the term, however appropriate, is a gringo term and considered offensive to Guatemaltecos. Because I am a culturallysensitivejewishaustralianleftleaningantineo-conuniversityeducatedstereotype, I call them by their correct name, Camionetas.

Okay, the point is, I was on a Camioneta on my way to visit my friend Anton in San Pedro de Atitlan. Anton and I live one block away from each other in Melbourne. I took a Camioneta from Guatemala City to San Pedro. All was fine, weather and I. The road became more twisted and tangled as we joined the dots from highland village to higher highland village. Of course, as the road became more dangerous, the driver became more confident. At one point the shrill screams of bald tyres combined with landscape shooting past in a blur put me in a cold sweat. Freediving is relatively safe, I thought.

As we overtook yet another pickup around yet another blind corner, a truck came around the corner toward us. The driver braked quickly trying to slow down enough to tuck back behind the slow pickup to avoid collision. At that moment, if you had looked at my face you would have guessed that I had just taken a shot of homemade tequila and lime. I tensed all of my facial muscles into an ugly ball of over sunned skin and two week stubble, before hearing a crash of sheet metal and glass.

Don´t get worried though (Mum), the oncoming semi only took out the mirror. The driver didn’t really care much, he simply said something sharp in Spanish (a word that I had never heard), shrugged his shoulders and continued at the same smoking pace.

San Pedro, on the shores of a stunning volcanic lake would have been a special place in the past. Now, it is basically a gringo village occupied by Germans with dreadlocks concerned about upholding their image as a free spirit, whilst remaining categorically imprisoned. I went to have some beers with Anton at a bar called Buddha´s. Decorated with lovely Tibetan prayer flags, images of Buddha on the menu, the walls and in the bathroom the owner, Mike, had done a good job on cultivating a spiritual drinking hole. Complete with free pool. Mike was most proud of his brand new 21inch plasma screen display for the computer behind the bar. I am pretty sure Buddha would also have been proud.

I returned to Guatemala City in the following morning.

Top five things to do in Guatemala City:

1.Visiting the countries best museums and zoo
2.Dining fine in Zona 10
3.Connecting with the bohemian culture of Zone 1’s bars and clubs
4.Gazing on Guatemala from above at the Mapa Relieve
5.Leaving

Adapted from Lonely Planet Guatemala

Yes, it was nice to leave. I concede that Guatemala City is not the nicest places to be, infact it is at times awful. However, as is often the case a lack of tourists means people are more genuinely friendly. I genuinely did enjoy the few days I spent in the capital.

In my opinion it is not possible to properly understand Guatemala without visiting the La Capital. I was fortunate to meet Philippa, a Canadian lawyer of Haitian decent volunteering for a Human Rights organization. Philippa had been sent to Guatemala by the Canadian Bar Association for a six month internship working mainly protect the rights of female workers in the clothing and textile industry. Many of the workers are unable to read or write, yet are forced to work under formal contacts, which of course they do not understand.

Hearing Philippa’s stories helped me to further understand the difficulties that the people of Latin America face as the global economy encroaches deeper into the third world, raping its resources and people. I dig him, but I do not own a Che t-shirt. I am not a Pinko, just concerned, more each day.

Almost 3 of 15 million Guatemaltecos live in the city, a seething mess of markets and squares divided by deep dry canyons. The buses splutter about the city like wounded asthmatic donkeys. Municipalities are divided unto Zones, numbered 1 to 18. Some of these Zones, like 6 and 18 are no go, violent attacks, murders and rapes are frequent. Tabloids remind us daily. Unfortunately I do not have any stories to share about such things.

Again, due to time constraints I missed out the best of Guatemala. I did not travel extensively in the highlands. Many travelers that I spoke to considered the time they spent village hopping in the mountainous South West an enlightening and enriching experience. Almost one month passed as quickly as a long weekend, my time was up.

I spent the last few days traveling through the North of Guatemala with Philippa. We crossed the boredr to Mexico and visited the state of Ciapas. Chiapas is in the South East corner and is of the poorer Mexican states. It has a Pacific coast, but no Caribbean like the Yucatan Peninsula, where Playa del Carmen and Cancun are. Cough cough kill me cough cough.

Chiapas has a number of significant Mayan sites and beautiful waterfalls, for this reason there are many tourists here. Palenque was my third and final Mayan site of the trip. In Guatemala I visited Tikal, where 50 metre high limestone towers above a lush canopy. In Honduras I visited Copan, a small, but special place. During my visits to these places I felt that much of the information about the Maya that I was being fed by the museums, plaques and guides was inconsistent, crude, oversimplified and perhaps inaccurate.

Whilst atop one of the towers in Tikal, which I had reluctantly climbed, I met an archaeologist. Fransisco told me he did not believe indigenous people had ever been concerned with tourists scaling the sites. Perhaps only hypocritical culturallysensitivejewishaustralianleftleaningantineo-conuniversityeducatedstereotype gringos applying western value judgments based on issues in their own countries were concerned with such matters. Sorry.

Fransisco and I chatted for a while atop the tower. He was supervising reconstruction of the tower, of course only the sides visible to tourists. The other parts would be restored, but only functionally – simply to strengthen the tower itself. I learned more in that half hour about the Maya than over the previous month. I will not go into detail here, however I will share with you two topics that I am interested in regarding our understanding of these civilizations.

One
The term Maya is like sand. It does not exist. It is a simple term based on simple academic categorization. The Maya are many people, across many regions and periods. The different groups cannot be lumped together and called Maya. The term is blunt and only clouds our understanding. As we learn more about the different groups that constitute what we call Maya the more we begin to see how inappropriate an all encompassing term such as that is. Still, I have used it extensively because it is so entrenched in our discourse.

Two
From what we understand, the socio-political structure of the Maya, there is that term again, was admirable. Particularly in Copan (Honduras) there was clear evidence suggesting intelligent members of the community, such as those with an understanding of mathematics, astronomy and geometry were elevated to positions of power.

I believe this is superior to the Western, or ancient Greek concept of Democracy. From a purely theoretical perspective, the model is ultimately non-political. In situations where a population is reliant on the natural world to prosper and be happy, knowledge, not popularity is king. Armed with knowledge, these leaders were able to accurately predict and explain rain and sun, hot and cold, day and night. I may not be making much sense, nor is this discussion very helpful, however a romantic attachment to an ancient political ideology such as this never hurt no one. Unlike…

I was walking back from dinner behind a neatly dressed older gentleman wearing a t-shirt with the words “Maine – Honduras” on the back. I politely approached him and told him jokingly that I was surprised there was also a Maine in Honduras. No laugh. Instead he pivoted stiffly around, shiny silver hair in the moonlight, and replied “No, there is no Maine in Honduras. We belong to the Evangelical Covenant Church in Maine. We are visiting a sister congregation of ours here in Copan, Honduras. We have come to spread the word of Jesus Christ as our Lord and saviour.”

His patter was so polished that I quickly scanned around at his feet, looking for a tape player. Either that, or he was taking the piss. Nope, the real deal. I tried, I really did, but speaking to these people is impossible. Any questions you ask are quickly and efficiently answered with biblical rhetoric that is impossible to decipher. I walked away quietly, maintain eye contact, as the manual suggests.

At this stage I am at the end of my time here in Central America. Just arrived in Mexico City, an amplification of Guatemala City by almost 10 times. I will only spend one week in Mexico, four days in the capital. Mexico is enormous and diverse. It demands a long and dedicated trip. Perhaps if/when I return to Mexico I will set aside some extra time for some Guatemalan village hopping, via knife edge camioneta of course!

Off to see some Rivera and Kahlo now, have been looking forward to that.

Choose wisely,

Daniel

An almost perfect pyramid of French tourists at Palenque