Saturday, 31 December 2011

 

 

Copan Ruinas, Honduras

 

 

I awoke this morning with it in my head to make a dash to Antigua before all operations in this country shuts down for New Year’s, trapping me in Copan Ruinas.  With a papusa on my lap, I’ve seated myself inside a strangely empty collectivo. 

 

A sign notifies of the approaching border, which I picture to be nothing more than a speed bump similar to the ones that slow these chicken buses to crawl through every village dotting the highway.  In my mind they need a more fitting name than chicken bus, something more local than the Spanish ‘camioneta’ and more foreign, like the Russian equivalent ‘marshrutka’.  I guess when you translate it, it loses its uniqueness.  Even marshrutka translated to English is “routed taxi.”  Not so charming. 

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In effect, the border isn’t much more than I expected.  As I am walking past the armed guard on the Guatemalan side, he motions for me to stop by 'Migration', which I shake my head affirming to have already been there.  He flicks me a thumbs up and goes back to texting, his cell phone tapping against a Kalashnikov, both instruments of power in the corruption of the developing world.

 

A couple of kilometres into Guatemala on the road to Chiquimula, the collectivo fills rapidly.  A man initiates conversation, typical talk to tourists: Where are you from?  Coming from Copan?  Going to Antigua?  Do you think Guatemala is beautiful? and I predictably answer yes to all of them.  He knows the answers but still is eager to connect.  I love the innocence of struggled conversation especially when lacking the language to do it.  Empathy and compassion are visibly comedic at the expense of the silly tourist stupidly speaking.  Boys hang out the open door of the collectivo as we snake around mountains sharpened like canine teeth by the aging river below.  A 'Departamento de Agricultura' truck passes with men overflowing the back, packed like cigarettes on their way to one of the many farms shaving the forested hills clean.  Nearing the town of Bordo, all trucks travel with flattened tires, a result of the Guatemalan Always-Room-For-One-More policy.  Traffic is suddenly thick but it doesn’t stop drivers from squeezing through.  Kids crowd around curious to my scribblings and cornfields quietly absorb the sun.  In no time, the sun slides behind the clouds and pointy mountains poke pinhole leaks, rain falls across their spine.  Along the road, the eyes of children are spying through open windows on mothers and father committed to daily chores; everything would be a picturesque invasion on my part.

 

The highway divides, enabling heavier traffic and at each crest I am expecting Guatemala City to break like a wave and wash across a crater-like valley.  We continue climbing and kilometres click closer to the city, our altitude is too high for a metropolitan population of 4.1 million.  Gradually, golden desert earth gives way to mortar and asphalt.  The sprawl of concrete quietly sneaks up and surrounds us, peak to valley covered in cement structures that create a skyline like granite circus tents.  Cars slip across suggested lines and people move in passive patterns amidst the mass chaos.  Bus drivers hold pressure on their horns to alleviate the stress of inching out into traffic.  Corners and curves hide the caring and the criminal.  Narrow streets stare at the living, looking upon lives that may or may not matter to history.  Finally, I am here.

 

Upon exiting the bus, a taxi driver invites himself too close for comfort where he offers a ride to the Antigua terminal for 40 Quetzals ($5).  Absurd!  If taxi drivers were a race I would invite a genocide.  I walk a bit further from his hungry pockets and friendly strangers tell me it’s not far.  Guarded by armed police, the transit system is organized and safe and at 1Q proves to be a better option than getting ripped off.  On the bus, I get a distanced peek into the city through gaps in buildings looking out over the urban conquest; it’s enough to make me want to come back.  I also get a steamy glimpse into what a young couple can get away with on a public bus.  No doubt it has the bad parts that come up in tourist fear-mongering but at least I’m not hassled here, I move as just another face among the metropolitan facelessness.  That’s the best and worst thing about cities – they leave you alone.

 

At the bus terminal, a man is repeatedly yelling Antigua like he’s selling it at an auction: Antigua, Tigua, Tigua, T-wa, t-wa, t.wa.t.wa.t.wa.t.wa.  SOLD! and I hop on.  The bus is packed more than ever and it appears the bus driver has moved the seats closer together so that more people can get on.  I’m pretty sure the people in the seat ahead of me had bruises on their backs in the outline of my kneecaps.  Climbing the coniferous hills with volcanoes in the distance, a fresh breeze blows through smelling of the ocean, which I know is nowhere near.  It reminds me of a trip I did on the Olympic peninsula in Washington State with my sister and brother in-law, however, here there is no argument over Kraft Dinner.  An old lady by the beautiful name of Irma Luna notices me writing and says I write nice.  I don’t bother mentioning that friends say I write like a serial killer and just say thanks.  Like many Guatemalans, she has spent time in the United States; she owns a flower shop there. 

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When we pull into Antigua, she insists on finding me a hotel.  I take her bag, she takes my arm.  I settle in a 40Q cement box on an open roof where sheets wave with a volcano backdrop.  We have coffee and she goes on about how the US is so impersonal and no one cares for one another, which I argue the opposite.  From the surface, western society may appear cold and selfish but I think kindness is an element of trust and trust is to be earned.  I hate that it’s accepted to harp on North American culture, especially by those who come from the region.  The factors that make up Canadian society, enables one to wander away from the prison of the self.  Then again, I think I would feel that anywhere.  To a certain extent, you will always feel like a visitor in a foreign land unless you’re born there.  If you’re an outsider, you’ll probably develop your own outsider’s culture with the other visitors and maybe even call it home.  According to Irma Luna, she will always be a visitor to Los Angeles and I will never call this place home, even if the town square where she leaves me is quite picturesque.

 

I wander around the jam-packed streets, pushing my way through New Years Eve visitors, many of whom come from close by.  Stilted street performers entertain the local tourists, here for one night to welcome the New Year.  Bands bang away at marimbas, the national instrument, and fireworks explode in the trail of fleeing children, lighting up alleyways, parks and pedestrian sidewalks like wicked welders adding sparks to the symphony of celebration.   I am alone throughout all of this but, ironically, I’ve never felt farther from lonely.  I laugh myself breathless at the children in gunpowder joy.  I feel the grip of arms holding people happy for an instant, blinking disbelief at my surroundings and all that makes it possible for me to be here.  Lights spelling 2011 begin flashing over the square.  Voices band together building noise while blasts of kaleidoscopic atoms add stars to the night sky.  At the crescendo of it all, when the fluorescent glow of 2012 washes over Antigua, I feel an incredible sense of empathy for everyone and everything.  A new year.