It took over an hour to check the bike out of Mexican customs. There was only one window and a problem case in front of us. We were further delayed by an over-zealous inspector wanting to see not only the VIN (vehicle identification number) on the bike’s frame, but also the one on the engine, which is inconveniently located between the sidecar and the bike, i.e. behind lots of bits. Somehow Fran talked his way out of it and a short while later we were bumping down the dusty road to Guatemala.
The La Mesilla border is a bustling town that suddenly appears at the end of the no-man’s land after leaving Mexico. I was looking for some business-like buildings but instead we found ourselves in chaos. Crawling up the street, we were surrounded by money changers and ‘helpers’. My head was doing a fair impression of Linda Blair’s in The Exorcist when Fran yelled “GET OUT! FUMIGATION!”. I hopped out just in time before a masked figure in jeans began spraying Pferdi’s tires. I paid at the kiosk with my new Quetzales (Q15 = $1.94) and after filling-out a form at Migracion, we were stamped-in. The visa was for 90 days, but not just for Guatemala, it covered El Salvador, Honduras and Nicaragua as well: the CA-4 countries. The stop at customs took longer, then it was over to the ‘bank’, a locked door to our right that was opened a crack by an armed guard. Inside we paid the lone cashier behind bars the fee for the bike’s temporary import permit. Meanwhile 2 customs agents did an inspection, at the same time refusing entry to the nice man from Sonora we’d met leaving Mexico. His registration was expiring in 2 months so it was back across the line until he got it renewed. Total time to exit Mexico and enter Guatemala: 2.5 hours.
Leaving the madding crowd, we finally got onto the main road. The mountains were breathtaking but the roads would not get the “Mover Mexico” award and the topes here were much worse. We immediately got stuck behind a chicken bus. The emergency back door was opened and a hand with a phone snaked out, so we posed and waved. A while later 3 motorbikes appeared in the opposite direction, our Centro-America support escort to Huehuetenango (known by the locals as Huehue). They drove us all the way into town in time for a late family lunch of Chinese food, a welcome change from our year-long diet of tortillas and beans. Sitting in front of an aviary of lime green parrots it was a peaceful introduction to Guatemalan life. Dinner later with Luis, an interesting lawyer, and his wife, gave us insights into the country and culture. I have to admit I allowed myself to get distracted by the platter of local delicacies and my taste buds still zing at the memory of orange segments sprinkled with black salt.
Before leaving town, Luis took us up to the mountaintop overlooking the city. The road was pretty vertical and crawled with groaning trucks. We were down to second gear when the bike stalled. Jammed behind a semi in a line of traffic, going forward seemed an impossible task. It was first gear after that. The view at sunset was spectacular but I knew Fran was fretting over the downhill journey. Overheating brakes and first gear made for a slow descent. Poor Luis was a model of patience. Around pitch black corners, men, women and even children appeared, bent over double under the weight of huge sacks, with precious little space between us and them. They flashed by like staccato scenes in an old film, black and white images of hardship. This was the flip side of the migrant caravan; the ones who stayed behind.
The road to Lake Atitlan was awful. Huge swaths of surface were gone and trying to avoid the holes only put us into the path of garishly colored buses and Saturday morning shoppers. The descent to the lake however had a beautifully paved road but was so steep and winding we had to keep stopping (again!) to cool the brakes. Near the bottom we found ourselves on narrow streets dodging women with basins of fruit on their heads. Then we got stuck between a tall scaffold and a tent which caused a bit of a stir. That’s when I got out my “I’m not with Him” sign. By the time we reached San Pedro La Laguna, we were melting in the heat and Fran was ready to blow his top. After negotiating hippies and steep alleyways, we found, quite by accident, the Spanish school we wanted to attend. They provided accommodations as well as classes so we checked-in right there and then. After parking under a shady tree with a tuck-in under a blue tarp, Pferdi would now have a rest for the best part of a month.
The lakeside is dotted with towns named after saints and inhabited mostly by the Mayan people, each area with its own language and customs. The women wore brightly colored, embroidered blouses and long, high-waisted skirts with decorative belts. Their daughters were their Mums in miniature. Spanish was the second language of all of our teachers. Corazon Maya was more than just a family-run school, they also supported the local community and helped educate girls from low-income families.
Our top floor ‘apartment’ was at the edge of the garden which ran down to the lake. We ate on the balcony under the shadow of the San Pedro volcano. Voices drifted up from the house next door as they laid out coffee beans in the garden to dry. We signed-up for two weeks but extended twice. Our teachers were well-suited to our personalities but it was hard to concentrate for 20 hours of classes a week, not to mention homework. Fran had a particularly difficult time but his teacher Magdalena was gentle and patient and adopted ‘Don Pancho’ as her special case. Her 6-year old daughter was recruited some evenings to read with him from her own books. Pancho was so surprised whenever he got anything right in class, he put it down to the Power Of His Magic Pencil. The sharpening of the Lapiz Magico became a nightly ritual. He studied more than me, but quite unfairly, called me “Swot of the Antarctic”.
There were only a few live-in students and we became a sort of family. During the week, activities like chocolate making and traditional meals were organized. On these nights, as on many street corners, the sound of clapping filled the air as women slapped their hands together with flattened dough to make tortillas. One Friday night we squeezed into the high bed of a pick-up truck and drove up the mountain to San Pablo La Laguna to celebrate the festival of their patron saint. Three hours of pulsating crowds and chaos but definitely not to be missed.
The days blended into one. Strolling to the market was fraught. Swerving tuk-tuks driven by 17-year old, testosterone-filled boys had me convinced I’d leave the valley minus a foot. There was also the dilemma of trash disposal. Plastic bags were banned in town but nobody had thought of an alternative. Keeping our little kitchen and bathroom clean and tidy required some imagination and I resorted to saving, and using, the bags from the Cornflake boxes. In the evening we’d walk to the bakery and buy ‘pan frances’ from 10-year old Rosario, known as Chayita. What a sweet tooth these south-of-the-border countries have. Every bakery is about 90% cakes and 10% bread. The business belonged to Magdalena’s familyand her little sister was there every evening in her green-blue skirt, sparkly blouse and wide smile. Her pink backpack and school books lay open on the table behind. One evening I asked what time the shop closed and she spread her arms across the counter and quite simply said, “When the bread is gone”.
When our brains were full, it was time to move on. Fran worried about Pferdi climbing up the mountain with a full load so Magdalena’s Dad drove me and the heavier bags to the main road. She and our neighbor David came along in the bed of the pick-up so leaving became more of a festive occasion than a sad farewell. It took an hour and a half to drive 25 km. We crawled out of the crater and the lake with its fertile shores shimmered far below. Perhaps that’s why the local women favour turquoise and green. They are the colors of Eden.
The final days were spent in Antigua, a colonial city with cobblestones to permanently rearrange my insides. It’s surrounded by three volcanos, one of which sprouted steam on a regular basis. There we were reunited with Enrique from Puebla who’d moved home to his ‘Beautiful Guatemala’. What a joy to see him again and while our lunch this time didn’t quite last 8 hours, we did a good job trying to match it.
No matter how much Fran wanted to avoid it, the drive to the next border took us through Guatemala City. Fate stepped in in the shape of Danilo who drove down from the capital the night before with 7 friends on motorbikes. After brief introductions and much twitching of the neighbors' curtains, they left, but Danilo returned the next morning. By 6:45 AM Antigua was behind us, the air brisk and the sky golden behind the curve of the mountains. At 7:15 he was guiding us through early Sunday traffic. Thirty minutes later, following signs for El Salvador, we exited the dreaded metropolis. It was a straight run to the border and looking back on the six weeks we’d never intended to spend in Guatemala, it seemed a very long way from Hue Hue.