3/16- After 3 hours of laying awake, I sleep for one minute before the alarm goes off. Pack and stumble into the predawn chill like zombies, waiting for our shuttle to Copan Ruinas, Honduras. Two Frenchmen and a tiny girl, maybe three years old, are waiting with us. A shuttle approaches, then another, but none stop. The appointed time comes and goes, and we wait. Finally, a shuttle stops and we climb on, only to discover that we are not on the passenger list for this one either. That’s probably just as well, because the little girl starts shrieking at the top of her lungs, “J’veux pas partir!” (I don’t want to leave!) and generally screaming her little lungs out while trying to climb through the glass of the side window. The van pulls away, and after the sound of the motor has faded out, we can still hear her bloodcurdling screams fading into the distance.
Our shuttle finally arrives, 45 minutes late. We climb in and say hello to our fellow passengers, none of whom return our greeting. Hmmm. Taking the last available seat, the rearward-facing one behind the driver and his copilot, we settle in for the long ride to the border. The side window next to us is open, admitting a freezing blast of air, but when I try to close it, I discover that there’s only one pane of glass rather than the more usual two, and I can slide it back and forth all day without reducing the ingress of the chilly wind. Maybe that’s why everyone was grumpy…
Maryse and I zip up our jackets and snuggle to preserve body heat, awaiting the dawn. The driver of the sagging old diesel Hyundai minivan apparently thinks that the clutch is an on/off switch, so every time he makes the 1-2 shift, he drops the clutch like he’s trying to break an axle, apparently oblivious to the slamming, lurching ride he’s providing his hapless passengers. This makes sleeping tough. I eventually give up trying, and let Maryse snuggle in my lap while I look out the front window. Driver’s ed is obviously not big in Guatemala; this guy has some very interesting ideas on how to pass people.
His basic procedure for passing is to tailgate the guy in front for a long time, sucking fumes in the open windows. Then, usually on an uphill right-hand blind turn, he arbitrarily decides it’s time to pass. So rather than downshifting, he just leaves the anemic van in too high a gear and floors it, producing lots of frantic pinging and lugging from the tiny engine, but very little acceleration. Moving into the left lane, we inch by the huge gas tanker or whatever we’re trying to pass, usually getting halfway by before some other huge vehicle looms ahead of us, lights flashing, horn blaring. Instead of admitting defeat and abandoning the pass, our intrepid driver stays with it in a display of unjustified optimism, perhaps hoping for a miracle of nitrous, until the last possible second, whereupon he slams on the brakes as hard as humanly possible, and tucks in behind the vehicle we’re trying to pass with inches to spare. Next, he waits for an inopportune stretch of road, floors it without downshifting, and inches into the left lane… Ad nauseum.
Between the abusive shifting, (low speed) abusive braking (higher speed) blaring horns and glaring lights from oncoming trucks, I am getting a bit agitated, and can’t understand how Maryse can even be attempting sleep. At least in a head-on, she’ll be safer lying down… The asian couple in the seat facing ours is totally stonefaced and stereotypically inscrutable, and will not return a smile. I stare out the windshield as we roll into Ciudad Guatemala.
There’s something very repetitious about Guatemala City… So many of the buildings look the same… Like that hotel there. Wait, there it is again… WTF? We’re lost, is what. Our bumbleclot driver can’t find the address he’s looking for. After 45 minutes of wandering, we abandon the chase, pick up two other people and head out, after stopping for directions six times to no avail. That’s fine with me, because a glance at the passenger manifesto reveals that they are planning to put more people in the already-full van. Losing those other guys is all that saved us from a very uncomfortable trip, or rather an even more uncomfortable one. Anyway, we leave. Or try to, because the driver can’t find his way out of the city. Half an hour later, we’re underway. Ai yi yi.
Leaving CG, we endure an awful descent behind a line of semis down an endless steep grade, huffing burning brake dust and diesel fumes. Of course, Mr. Lobotomy tries to pass constantly to no avail, endangering all of our lives and nearly causing a head-on collision at one point. I glance back and the asian couple actually look distressed. Maryse is sick from fumes, motion, stress…. We optimistically request a stop for espresso, and although the station does actually have an espresso machine, it’s not plugged in, so all they have is brewed coffee that tastes like a mix of very thin used motor oil and battery acid. In a nice symmetrical inversion, we are forced to nibble the dulces from Antigua in order to drink the coffee.
Trying to plumb the psyche of our driver, I begin to study his face in the rearview mirror. There are a couple of disturbing things there. Well, the first thing is actually something missing. He has a near-total lack of affect; that is, his facial expression is nonexistent and immobile. That’s usually a bad sign. Even more distressing than the suspicion of personality disturbance is his nodding head and drooping eyelids. The guy is fatigued, and every time there’s a pause in the action, he starts nodding off. I resolve to smack him hard if those eyelids close for more than a second, but he keeps it together, barely. Finally I can’t take the suspense anymore, and ask him if he’s okay to drive. Of course, everyone in the cab wakes up and starts loudly protesting that he’s fine, he’s the best driver around, etc. Whatever, hopefully now he’ll be extra alert out of machismo- I don’t care as long as we don’t die. I’m having mental images of his placid, immobile face as he drives the busload of us off the nearest 2000 foot cliff, blinking slowly as the ground rushes up to meet us…
On a whim, I turn back to the Asians and ask in English where they’re from. “Singapore,” comes the response in perfectly unaccented English. How’s Singapore these days? Very, very crowded. No space to live. They seem happy to be elsewhere.
Aside from the idiotic driving, the scenery is dramatic and beautiful, with deeply featured ravines and lush hills. The only thing is that every mile or so, there’s a smoldering pile of crap beside the road, with some Guatemaltico poking it with a stick, apparently with the intention of extracting a maximum of smoke from the leaves, plastic bottles, and whatever else. This results in a profusion of toxic stenches and a pretty lousy air quality. What the hell is wrong with people anyway? Other than the smolder piles, it would be beautiful… I did not think that I would encounter worse air quality that Mexico City in the mountains of Guatemala. The other thing is that nearly every diesel vehicle we see is emitting huge clouds of pitch-black smoke. Now, I own a diesel vehicle, and it’s really not that hard to get them to run cleanly- it’s just a simple timing adjustment, a tuneup. Nobody cares, nobody can afford it, what? It’s just sad to see such egregious pollution in such an otherwise beautiful place. As it stands, I wouldn’t want to live there just because of the wretched air quality.
We hit a checkpoint near the Honduran border and are stopped by the cops. They take the driver away, and much hand-waving and yelling transpires all around. The co-driver comes back to the van and rummages around in the absolutely empty glove compartment like he’s hoping the papers he needs can be rubbed into existence. Finally, we’re underway, but clearly there is a bad vibe in the cab. I ask the driver “¿Tenemos problemas?” and he doesn’t answer, but the co-driver is so upset that he says in English “Sixteen Quetzales!” and falls into sullen silence again. I must admit that after the wretched ride, I am perversely happy to see them suffer a bit.
After the mercifully brief passport ritual at the actual border with Honduras, we roll on for a couple minutes and then roll to a stop on the road. What now? Two flat tires, is what. Seriously. We limp another hundred yards to a Pinchazo place, and wait as the intrepid driving team takes both tires off, fills them with air, and puts them back on without fixing them! Don’t ask me why… Again, I am sadistically pleased that they have to lie on the hot asphalt, in light of the suffering they have caused their passengers.
Then, I notice my uncharitable feelings and reflect further. Well, these poor guys are just victims of the system, too. They probably got stuck driving the crappy van because they’re poor, or something like that. I look at the driver’s brown, lined, toothless face, and visualize him a couple years back, living in some tribal village somewhere, in balance with nature. Suddenly he’s hurtling down the road in a tin can; welcome to the industrial age. Tomorrow he’ll be doing customer service, answering questions about some Chinese kid’s suborbital scooter or something- welcome to the global age!
Wait a minute! I have tribal ancestors, too! What makes my loss of a tribal culture any less significant than his, just because my people went through it first? We can’t go back to tribalism, even though we might yearn for some of its aspects. We have no way forward but forward, into the unknown… But what about the Guatemalan Indians, who are losing their culture as we speak, who are being thrust into a technological world for which they are unprepared? Is their cultural destruction and enslavement just the price of our collective progress?
I’m really confused about these issues, probably because I can see too many sides. I truly don’t know the answers at all, but I guess my position is that we’re all in this together, and the way forward has to be based on economic justice for all, sustainability on a basic physical level, respect for all life including our fellow humans… That sort of thing. How exactly we’re going to get there, and the best ways to approach it… I’d love to hear your suggestions, is all I can say.
In the meantime, back at the van from hell, I am a bit manic due to lack of sleep and the total absurdity of the situation in general, so I’m cackling like a hyena, taking pictures, and scaring my fellow passengers by my apparent derangement, all of which earns me an elbow in the ribs from Maryse. “You’re scaring people, Tor.” Okay, honey, I’ll go back to pretending to be normal for a while…
I make conversation with some Spanish-speaking fellow passengers and discover some interesting news: The reason we were stopped was that the van, in addition to looking like a total piece of crap, has no license plate on the front and the one Nicaraguan plate on the back is half covered with a piece of black plastic, so the cops thought that it was stolen, which it probably is, because they have no papers at all for it. The cops wanted to make sure that we weren’t being abducted, which may have happened before with this van, as it has no inside passenger door handles. Thus, the necessity of a bribe.
Finally, we reach Copan Ruinas, and the van is reloaded with a crew of unsuspecting tourists for the return trip. Buena Suerte! You pays your money and you takes your chances. I resolve to see if a refund will be possible, but for the moment, I’m just glad we got there safely. A fellow passenger suggests a hotel, and we hike up to the Calle Real, a nice place on the hill above the town square, reasonable if slightly expensive at $12 US per night for a nice room with a TV, shower, towels, and two large beds.
Met a nice Canadian guy outside the hotel, and talked politics, as usual. He is of course reasonable, being a Canadian, and we agree that the US is getting out of control. We walk down to ViaVia, a restaurant and hotel/hostel run by some Belgian folks. Nice food, probably the best in Copan, but a bit pricey. Our Canadian friend appears, and we talk politics and philosophy for a while before heading off to visit the famous ruinas.
We decide to walk, and on the way see some happy Honduran cows licking each other. They pose for a couple photos, and then somehow we walk right past the main gate of the ruins and further on to Las Sepulturas, a sort of side exhibit. Totally clueless, we walk in and attract a guide who asks for our tickets, which we don’t have. He says, no problem, come on and I’ll show you around. He gives us a tour and explains some interesting facets of the Mayan culture while showing us the ill-names Sepulturas, which were not sepulchres at all, but rather the living quarters of the noble classes, according to recent archaeology. For one thing, they slept on stone beds (with soft mattresses, of course) containing the remains of their parents. Seems a bit macabre to us, but then the Mayans had a very different relationship with life and death than we do. They played their ball game with total dedication, and the player who most distinguished himself in the games was frequently sacrificed as a reward. They must not have known such a thing as a fear of death…
On the way out, we asked Marcial, our guide, what we owed him for his hour. He said give whatever you think is fair… I said I didn’t want to insult him; what would be good? He said maybe $5 per person. We paid him, and I asked what the average Honduran would make for a day’s work, and he said maybe $5 per 10 hour day, working construction. Ouch.
Met a German guy, Felix, on the way out, and we talked about politics, spirituality, and the infamous 2012 end date for the Mayan calendar. Seems like a lot of things are going to be coming to a head around then, and Felix is looking at buying some land in Honduras and going back to the land while the world sorts itself out… Not a bad plan, except he’s looking at land on the coast- too hot, humid, and buggy for me, as I am about to discover in Trujillo.
We head back to the hotel, agreeing to meet Felix in a bit for drinks at the bar. Shower and return, and he introduces us to Benjamin and Ann (I think…) some Americans who’ve been around for a while volunteering. They love Copan but are leaving soon. We go to Tunkul, right next door to ViaVia, for food (burrito gigante, plato tipico) and drinks, and the conversation gets deep. I tell Ben that he should really write about his spiritual experiences, and put it out there for some other folks to read and maybe draw inspiration from. Yesterday I got an email from him, and he thanked me for the inspiration… Glad to help, man. He’s a lot more unequivocally positive than I am, which is maybe a good thing. We talk about real Christianity as opposed to the storebought kind, and agree that our spiritual transformation as a world is where it’s at.
A good day, (all's well that ends well) and off to sleep.